


Thief

by amiabletoad



Category: South Park
Genre: Alcohol, Boyfriends, Boys Kissing, Drugs, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gee whiz, Girls Kissing, Kissing, M/M, Male Slash, Not Underage, Sex, Shameless Smut, Smut, Weed, groovy, guys this is my first work here, i'll probably add more tags later idk, just realized the order of these tags is whack, lol, oh hamburgers, slight angst, yeah here i am adding more tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiabletoad/pseuds/amiabletoad
Summary: Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski spend every spare moment of theirs lives together. One thing in particular that the two bond over is music; as Kyle prepares to leave for medical school, Stan finds himself tripping over his own feet in an endless cycle, trying to make that perfect playlist for the boy he falls for more and more with each passing day, while at the same time struggling to figure out his own career choices.Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak have been in a committed relationship for years now — or so Tweek thought. He starts noticing how close Clyde and Craig are and can’t help but feel jealous, but he’s always too nervous about possibly upsetting his boyfriend to mention the way he feels. Plus, he hasn’t had coffee in a while.Butters, even at the ripe old age of 17, consistently finds himself clinking his knuckles together while sitting in his room, alone. However, Kenny McCormick finds a way for Butters to escape. This method of escape, Butters knows, is not the wisest thing he could do, given his situation, but most of the time his thoughts are that he’s just a little tired of it all, so why not?





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first SP fanfic and is also on tumblr! follow me @southparkhomos for some totally groovy content (jk it's probs trash). anyway I appreciate any reads and/or comments! thanks
> 
> also THEY ARE NOT UNDERAGE. a few of them are 17 at the beginning but that's past the legal age of consent (where i'm from) and i'm stricly avoiding writing any pedophilia or anything, so don't worry about that!
> 
> anyway the story is told with a focus on stan, tweek, and butters but definitely involves other characters. read it please i'm desperate to share my feelings for these ships

_STAN_

South Park was always, always cold. When he was younger, Stan never minded the lingering dampness caused by the snow in his woolen clothing, but as he matured, he found himself slightly annoyed by it. He was making his daily trip to his best friend’s house, so he could engage in his daily routine of greeting Sheila, his mother, and Gerald, his father, then walking up the stairs to greet Kyle with a swift knock on the door and a smile upon entry.

Kyle, as an almost-18-year-old, still wore a green hat with flaps over the ears. He grew to be average height, though a little on the lighter side weight-wise, and his hair was just as unruly as it had been throughout his childhood. His freckles were still prominent across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, his eyes a soulful brown, and his lips an enticing cherry red. He outgrew his old orange coat and had to exchange it for a tamer, calmer hue of orange, and generally walked around wearing jeans with holes in the knees but not really caring. He’d grown into quite the studious child, in Stan’s opinion. Straight A’s, honor society, et cetera, and he had already been offered a full-ride to his college of choice by the first day of his senior year of high school. Stan was overwhelmingly proud of his best friend.

However, Stan was different; he was tall, almost six feet when standing up straight, with light blue eyes and hair as dark as midnight, and also no clue of where to go with his life. At the current point in time, most of his life was occupied with Kyle, whether that be going to get ice cream with him or begging him for help with his embarassingly simple science courses, so the thought of Kyle going across the country was, understandably, a daunting one. It was something he thought of each day on his walk to Kyle’s, even when they weren’t in school. Senior year had started about a week ago for them, and Stan was already having a rough time with his remedial physics course, but he didn’t mind the chance to have more time with Kyle. He found himself at his doorstep, knocked twice before letting himself in, and smiled at Gerald and Sheila sitting in the front room.

“Hey, Stanley! We were waiting for you!” said Sheila in her thick New Jersey accent. “Is everything okay? Why are you late?”

Stan maintained his smile for her. “It’s all good, Sheila. No worries, just wanted to eat a little before I stopped by today. Didn’t want our studying to be interrupted by my stomach grumbling.”

She nodded her head at him as if in persmission for him to go upstairs, and Stan made his way to Kyle’s room in the middle of the hallway, second door on the right. He knocked once and pushed open the door with a smile which immediately widened at the sight of Kyle sitting at his desk, hair tousled, one hand on his forehead in concentration and the other writing furiously, biting his lip as his stared intensely at what Stan presumed to be calculus homework.

Kyle stopped writing after a few seconds and put down his pencil, letting his face ease into a smile. “Hey, Stan, what’s up? Need some help or just wanna hang? I got some mad beats for us to listen to either way.”

His unironic use of the phrase “mad beats” made Stan grin. “I need a little help with physics, but I got this idea...”

“Yeah?” said Kyle, looking up at him curiously.

“We should put that off until it’s absolutely necessary and listen to those aforementioned ‘sick beats.’” Stan replied.

“Hmm.....” Kyle pretended to be thinking, picking up his pencil to tap it on the desk multiple times in rapid succession, a habit Stan noticed he had developed sometime near the end of middle school and never given up. It was endearing, to say the least. “Sounds good to me. Got anything new to listen to? Or been too busy with your girl?”

Stan’s immediate response was a sigh. “Dude, you know I’ve just been trying to get her with Cartman, right? There’s not really anything between Wendy and me anymore,” he informed him. Kyle furrowed his eyebrows but made no response and allowed Stan to continue. “In response to your one valid question, yes, I have a few tunes we could turn up, but I wanna hear yours first. You seemed pretty proud of it.”

Before he finished the sentence, Stan knew that they were listening to the other boy’s music first, but he thought it would be a nice gesture to pretend it had been a choice. Though, he supposed, even if it was, he would have let Kyle go first anyway; he found himself more and more in love with his daily music finds as time went by.

The intro to a quiet instrumental was the first thing to come from their bluetooth speaker that day, a general norm, and even though Stan wasn’t much of a fan of instrumental, being in Kyle’s room and by Kyle’s side made him a much more avid listener.

_TWEEK_

Tweek sat with Craig at an ice cream shop. They had decided to get one to share, partially because Craig liked ice cream more than Tweek did and partially because they didn’t have enough money for more than one. As Craig took another bite of their strawberry ice cream, Tweek looked on with wholesome adoration. Craig was still just as lovely as he had thought when they were younger; he maintained his style with his long-eared blue hat and had a solid blue jacket he wore all the time. His eyes were a dark blue, like the sky in the mornings right before the sun comes up, and he had jaw bones that looked like they were chiseled from stone. He towered over Tweek at a little over six feet tall, lanky and yet somehow still muscular. Tweek could swear that he grew to love this boy more with each passing day.

He finally managed to button his shirt properly on some days. His hair was still a mop atop his head, but it was a wee bit shorter than he had let it grow when he was younger. The color of his shirt nicely complimented his olive green eyes, as Craig said from time to time. Over the years, Craig had become more comfortable with verbally expressing his affection for him, Tweek noticed. He didn’t know if it was because they’d been together so long or what, but he definitely liked it.

Leaning forward a bit, Tweek looked at Craig with a tight-lipped smile, a cue that had grown to mean that he had a request of the boy. In this situation, he wanted Craig to give him a bite of the ice cream, not only because he thought it would be cute, but also because he still twitched quite a bit even without his coffee. It had only been a week, and Tweek still felt like it had been ages since his last cup; he constantly found himself rubbing his temple because of a pounding headache or falling asleep at the most random times, but Craig was always very accommodating of his situation.

Craig gave him a soft smile and brought the spoon to his mouth. The ice cream was okay, Tweek decided, but he didn’t get why Craig liked it so much. Each time they came here, he ordered the same strawberry flavor, and Tweek didn’t know how the boy never got tired of it.

He twiddled his thumbs a little after taking the bite of the ice cream, thinking to himself about how he could approach the issue he’d been wanting to talk about for a while: Craig and Clyde had been hanging out an awful lot, and Tweek was getting pretty nervous about what may happen between the two. Scared to bother his boyfriend, Tweek never mentioned it, but over the past couple weeks his anxiety over the situation had increased at an exponential rate.

“I, uh - ah! - Craig?” he said, looking up to meet his boyfriend’s gaze. Craig continued to eat the last few spoonfuls of his ice cream, though he nodded at him to indicate that he was listening. “Um, I wanted to ask, uh - ah! - uh, why, why do you like this ice cream so much?” he gave up trying to ask him here. He decided that if they were going to have a fight caused by him again, he didn’t want it to be in public.

“I dunno,” Craig responded in his nasal, monotonous voice. “It’s just good,” he offered as an explanation. He put his free hand on the table for Tweek to hold, and Tweek was forever grateful. Craig had never been too big on public displays of affection, but he was always down to hold hands. It was a unique thing about Craig that only made Tweek love him more.

They stay there for a while, holding hands and chatting with each other by the glass windows of the shop. Occasionally they would glance outside and see someone they knew. The cold air seeped in through the glass and made Tweek shiver because he never wore a jacket. Craig eventually checked his phone and sighed. “Babe, I have to go. Clyde said he wanted to hang out,” he explained.

Tweek’s heart sank. “Oh, uh, okay,” he managed to stutter out without an anxious squeak. “Uh, when can I see you again?” he held onto Craig’s hand tighter, trying to convey the message that he didn’t want him to go, wanted him to stay there with him and chat idly all day, but he knew it wouldn’t happen.

“I’ll call you tonight before bed, honey. You can see me at school tomorrow.”

That wasn’t the most reassuring of responses, but at least Tweek would get to hear his boyfriend’s voice before he fell asleep. He nodded his head in response, though sadly, and got up with Craig to walk out the door. They walked together in a comfortable silence until they arrived at Clyde’s house, where, in the front yard, Craig pulled Tweek into a warm hug. Admittedly, Tweek was surprised at the display of affection, but he hugged him back, resting his head on Craig’s chest and snuggling close to him like he always had when they hugged. Being in his lover’s arms always made him feel better, and for the few moments during which he was being embraced, he forgot all of his worries about what was to come.

But Craig eventually let go and placed a kiss atop Tweek’s forehead. “I’ll see you later, babe,” he said to him, a smiling with a warmth that was only reserved for Tweek. He waved affectionately, gaze lingering on the boy, before turning to Clyde’s doorstep and knocking. Clyde grinned at Craig when he answered, then saw Tweek and smirked a bit, but Tweek never saw.

He was already on his way home.

_BUTTERS_

He trudged up the stairs and into his room after his very small dinner. It hadn’t really been worth eating anyway, since it was some overcooked mushy broccoli with a side of some burnt “garlic” toast, but he was used to it at that point. The hunger was almost comforting because it meant he could escape his parents. He ran a hand through his relatively short hair and sighed when he sat on his bed. His room was sparsely decorated, to say the least; he had a poster of Lorde on the wall, but that was only allowed because it was showing support for his friend’s father.

At 17, Butters was still being locked into his room for hours on end, usually for something trivial. He sighed again. He was so frustrated at his situation that he felt like crying; he was permanently stuck in this place, at least until he was 18, which wouldn’t happen until he had already graduated; he still didn’t have any good friends, making him feel alone and unwanted; and his parents wouldn’t allow him to get a job, which not only made him feel like a burden but also a bum because some of his classmates had been working for a full year already.

He laid down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. His alarm clock read that it was about 7pm, so he could go to sleep and wake up really early before school, or he could stay up and Suffer. Butters had begun learning sign language on his own a while back, just picking up a few signs here and there, but only because he knew his parents would never be able to hear him practicing. At that point, though, he realized he had learned quite a bit, and felt a swell of pride at the idea that he taught himself enough sign language to communicate without disturbing anyone.

Not fond of the idea of going to sleep too early, he stood up and looked in his mirror on his wall. He began having a conversation with himself in sign language, and that is how Kenny McCormick, 18, found the boy when he tapped on his bedroom window soliciting entry.


	2. CHAPTER I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> STAN:   
> “’We’ve been broken up for so long. Honestly, Sheila, I don’t know why you still ask.’”
> 
> TWEEK:   
> “His mind was reeling with thoughts of Clyde and Craig, his heart riddled with self-doubt.”
> 
> BUTTERS:   
> “’Put some pants on, Butters. I’m taking you somewhere.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp
> 
> there are a lot of drugs at the end of the chapter, so if you don't like that, just skip it i guess???? i dunno
> 
> anyway!!!! hopefully this is good with some nice cute hot and sexy character development!
> 
> a few commented on my last chapter already, THANK YOU!

_STAN_

As  _amare_  by  _furino_  faded out of the background, Stan found himself more akin to the idea of studying. He figured that since they had spent a few hours of listening to Kyle’s playlist, he would actually sit down and ask for help with his physics work.

Kyle had always been the smart one of the group. He’d taken a bunch of advanced classes, so now, as a senior in high school, he really only took classes because he didn’t want to forget the things that he had learned, or so he told Stan. “Kyle?” he asked, sitting up from his position on the floor. The carpet was always super soft, so he had no qualms with lying down on the ground when Kyle was studying. “I kinda do, uh, actually need help with some physics.”

“Oh! Sorry, I forgot. Music, you know?” he smiled at Stan, and just like always, his heart skipped a beat in response. His smile was the kind that made him get butterflies in his tummy, even after all these years; it was a sensation to which he had grown accustomed. It was even comfortable at this point. “Do you want to play some or is a random mix good?”

“Random is fine. You know I always want to hear your music, sweetie,” he said sappily. This made Kyle smile again, though Stan was pretty sure he had never quite realized how affectionately he meant the pet names he called him. It was another thing that had grown normal for them; after Stan’s encounter with alcohol, Kyle began to express his affection for the boy more often, and it was always reciprocated. Now, years later, they were still in the habit of reminding each other just how much they cared. 

“Okay, well, grab the paper, and show me what’s up,” he said, smiling, and patted his chair. They always did this, where Stan squished into Kyle’s computer chair with him and paid more attention to the way Kyle brushed his hair out of his eyes and the way his lips moved when he talked than the subject they studied. It usually only lasted for about 15 minutes until they got distracted and off topic. That day was no different, and they ended up in a discussion about the anatomy of centaurs and how it would affect their lives.

Sometimes Stan said strange things or disagreed with Kyle just to see what he would say. With the physics paper pushed to the side, they faced each other in an intense discussion about whether having two pairs of lungs was a good thing. Kyle had grabbed a paper and a pencil and drawn a rough sketch of what a centaur looks like and added labels for the abnormalities in its body. It was strangely endearing, Stan thought. He was about to tell Kyle how cute he was when Sheila called from downstairs to tell them that dinner was ready, and he grinned because of course Sheila wanted him to eat with Kyle’s family. He did almost every night.

They made their way out of Kyle’s room and into the kitchen, where there sat a homemade meal, and Stan pulled out a chair for Kyle before taking his own seat. Gerald seemed to notice and smiled in his direction before asking, “So, who’s hungry?”

“Me,” said Kyle, grabbing food and piling it on his plate while Stan watched him fondly. As he started stuffing food in his mouth like he usually did, he noticed Stan and looked at him with his eyes sparkling, as if to say, “Got a problem?”

Stan shook his head and tried to keep from smiling too broadly because Kyle’s genuinity was the most enchanting thing about him, and also it was just funny to Stan to see the lanky boy eating so quickly. He reached for his own food as Sheila sat down, and Ike came downstairs to join them all. 

They ate in silence for a while, until Sheila said, “So, Stanley, how is it with Wendy?” 

He rolled his eyes in response. “We’ve been broken up for so long. Honestly, Sheila, I don’t know why you still ask. But, for the record, I’m trying to hook her up with Cartman. I’m hoping they’ll go to the winter formal together.”

Ike snorted as if that was unlikely, and Kyle nearly choked on his food. After he took a drink of water, he managed to choke out, “Wh-Why are you doing that for Cartman? He’s a total dick.”

“Well, yeah, but if she’s with him I won’t get questions about her anymore, and plus, Cartman told me he liked her. At least, I think that’s who he meant. He said he liked ‘the ho.’” Stan explained, furrowing his eyebrows before taking a bite of food to avoid having to elaborate. 

“How do you know that wasn’t in reference to Kenny?” Ike pointed out.

“Yeah, how do you know?” Kyle chimed in, gesturing toward Ike as if he had been thinking the exact same thing. 

This made Stan grin. He grabbed Kyle’s arm and looked into his eyes seriously. “Kyle... what if Cartman got with Kenny? Like, for real, what would we do? How could we support Kenny while not supporting Cartman?”

Kyle had to put his fork down and finish chewing before he could say, “I think the only thing we could do is suicide.”

It shouldn’t have, but it made Stan and Ike laugh. Sheila’s response was her typical “what-WHAT?” 

These days were always the best, the days where he could laugh and banter with Kyle and his family like he had always been a part of it. When he thought about it, Stan realized he really had; even when they had disagreements, Kyle begrudgingly invited him to his house for dinner or vice versa, and by the end of dinner time, they forgot why they had ever even disagreed.

Stan took a look at Kyle, who was smirking at his mom’s response to what he said as he took another bite food. Kyle had always been his whole world. He scooted a little closer to his chair and continued his eating too, while Sheila and Gerald exchanged glances, though Stan wasn’t sure if it was about him and Kyle or Kyle’s comment. 

Eventually the time came for Stan to go home. It was around nine when Stan got up, stretched, and said, “Well, it’s time for me to get going. See you all tomorrow?” 

Without awaiting a verbal response, he made for the door. He pulled his puffball hat on more snugly and shoved his hands into his jacket pocket, hunching over a little bit to avoid the cold, and started walking home. Even though he’d lived in South Park his whole life, he still really loved the way the street lights illuminated the snow on the ground because it made the snow glitter during the nighttime. The night was clear, and the air was just as crisp and calm as it always was on his walk home. He’d gotten used to it. He loved it.

What was unusual about that night, however, was that Kyle came running out of the door within a few seconds, almost barreling into Stan and knocking him over. Stan put his hands on his friend’s shoulders to steady him and looked down at him. “Dude, what’s up? You okay?” He was beyond concerned, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. 

Kyle looked up at him, placing a gentle hand on top of Stan’s where it was on his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m good,” he smiled, and god, Stan loved that smile. It took his breath away, and he wasn’t the one who had just run out the door. “I just wanted to walk you home is all, say hi to Sharon, you know,” he continued, his breathing making little clouds of fog in the air. He moved Stan’s hands off his shoulders and hooked arms with him, so they were walking side by side throughout the entire five minute walk to Stan’s house. Neither of them said anything, but neither of them needed to. Stan found his heart sinking in his chest when they were standing on his doorstep to say goodbye, even though he would see the boy the next day. He gave him a quick hug which left his heartbeat erratic and stepped into his house, and it wasn’t until he was up in his room that he realized Kyle hadn’t said hi to his mother at all, which meant he really did just want to walk Stan home.

Stan smiled to himself. Every day he grew more fond of that boy.

 

* * *

 

_TWEEK_

Tweek and Craig had a few classes together. Craig and Clyde had more classes together. It was something that Tweek stressed about quite frequently; in fact, it was at the top of his list, which included 2) Kim Jong Un and his plans to destroy America, 3) why the FUCK was Craig always hanging out with Clyde? and 4) seriously-ah! Seriously, why? Was he losing interest in Tweek?

In some ways, Tweek blamed himself for not having classes with him, but it wasn’t his fault he was so good at baking. His Home Ec teacher had recommended him for culinary, so half of his day was taken up with classes in which he learned how to cook. Craig had decided to take the route of an environmental scientist, which is not what Tweek had been expecting, but when he thought about it, he realized it made a lot of sense.

In his hand Tweek carried a big plastic ziplock baggie with muffins that he had made in his culinary class. He was supposed to be doing other things, but he knew he could just go home and make them, so he had decided to make muffins for his friends, and, more specifically, his boyfriend. Like usual, he waited at the doorway of the lunchroom for Craig. Going into the cafeteria gave him too much anxiety, so he and Craig had developed a routine in which Craig would grab his lunch for him and bring it to him, and they would go sit outside together. Technicaly, as seniors, they were allowed to leave campus for lunch, but Craig had never found it particularly appealing to do so, and Tweek agreed.

When he saw the boy, he smiled. Craig was the only person in the world who could make Tweek feel like his worries had melted away with just a single glance. It seemed that Craig noticed him too because he smiled back and headed toward him, but before he reached Tweek, Clyde came over to tell him something presumably personal, since he leaned over and whispered in his ear before they both looked at Tweek and nodded their heads. Clyde walked away, leaving Tweek with fierce anxiety by the time Craig reached him and handed him his lunch tray. They wordlessly walked outside and sat on the curb of the entrance to their school, and in the middle of their silence, Tweek remembered the muffins he had made. “H-Hey, Craig?” he asked tentatively, watching to see how the boy would react. “I made you some muffins if you want some.”

Craig smiled at his boyfriend. “Thank you, babe,” he responded, gazing at him affectionately like he always did. Tweek didn’t notice anything different about the way he was acting, so he assumed Clyde hadn’t said anything terrible about him. He open the baggie and handed a muffin to Craig, who took a bite and immediately moved closer to Tweek. “How did you get so good at baking? If I could bake as well as you, I would be so happy.”

“I-I guess you just have to keep me around then, for the muffins,” Tweek told him, half joking and half actually worried that that was his only redeeming quality. Craig seemed to notice what he meant, and he was about to open his mouth to say something when Kyle, Stan, and Kenny came by and sat down with them. 

They sat in a circle, Kenny to Tweek’s right, with Stan at his own right, and Kyle sat by Stan and Craig. Cartman, Butters, Token, and Bebe would probably be coming out soon too, and Tweek knew that whatever Craig had in mind was going to be left unsaid, at least until later when they were alone. 

Kenny had begun to wear his hoodie with the hood down, so people could understand him when he talked, and Tweek understood him clearly when he solicited a muffin. He nodded his head silently and let him hand the bag around the circle, allowing everyone to take one, and decided to focus on eating while the others talked to each other about something Kenny had apparently done the night before.

“Well, you guys were busy, probably licking each others’ balls, and I hate Cartman, so I figured, you know, why not,” Kenny shrugged, eating the muffin he took from Tweek and looking him temporarily to give him a thumbs up. Tweek appreciated the gesture, but he really wanted to be alone with Craig at the moment. He looked at his boyfriend, who seemed to understand what he wanted, but grimly shook his head. 

Tweek sighed quietly so as not to be noticed, but Craig noticed and took hold of his hand and squeezed. It made Tweek feel a little bit better. No matter how long they were together, he still felt warm and fuzzy when he held hands with the boy. A few years ago he had worried about why their spark had died out, but he realized it had been replaced with comfort. Craig felt like home to Tweek, like nowhere and no one else did. They maintained their hand holding, Tweek leaning his head on Craig’s shoulder, and listened to Cartman’s anti-semitic comments about Kyle upon his arrival at the circle of friends. Kyle and Stan exchanged glances, and some sort of unspoken message seemed to be conveyed through it. It reminded Tweek of the way he and Craig had been at the beginning of their relationship, and he wondered if there was anything going on between the boys that no one else knew about.

Butters joined the group shortly after Cartman, followed by Token, who was closely tailed by Bebe, his now-girlfriend. They’d spent years dilly-dallying around, but only recently had they finally made it official. Tweek would almost be proud of them, if he cared. It wasn’t that he wasn’t glad that his friends were happy. He was just more concerned about his own relationship at the moment, and Tweek was famous schoolwide for his habit of obsessing over things when they bothered him, which was precisely what he was doing at the moment.

No one seemed to notice, and when the end of lunch time was near, everyone started getting ready to go back to class, Kenny copying off of Kyle’s homework, Butters sitting there staring at him with a look of concentration in his eye, Cartman calling Token a fag for holding hands with Bebe, the usual. Tweek felt his heart racing and his head pounding; he felt simultaneously exhausted and overenergized. He could feels tears of frustration and upset starting to well up in his eyes, and only when he started trembling did Craig tug on his hand, indicating that he wanted to move somewhere more private. 

They snuck up a staircase that led to some obscure room in the building. They sat there for a moment, Tweek trembling, until Craig took Tweek’s face into his hands. “Babe, what’s bothering you? And don’t tell me nothing. I know there’s something.”

Tweek immediately started crying, not the loud tears, not the sobs, but just a steady stream of tears rolling down his cheek and trembling so hard he couldn’t talk. Craig had only ever seen him like this when one time he fell asleep before texting him goodnight, so Tweek showed up at his doorstep in this messy state. He ended up having to stay the night, but he slept on the floor because he was too shy to sleep in bed with Craig. That was almost three years ago, now. 

“C’mere,” said Craig, taking his boyfriend into his arms. Tweek’s tears dampened Craig’s shirt. The pompoms on his hat fell to Tweek’s jaw when he rested his head upon Tweek’s, and he knew that if the boy wasn’t upset, he would have found it amusing. Craig held him tightly until he quit crying, just rubbing his back and kissing his forehead, murmuring sweet nothings into his ear to keep him grounded. And then Tweek finally managed to speak what had been on his mind for a while:

“Y-You’re not, you’re not-ah! You’re not getting tired of me, are you?”

“Oh, baby, no,” Craig told him, and Tweek could hear the pain in his voice. “Why on Earth would you think that? You’re my little muffin, you know?” He ran his hand through Tweek’s hair and held him tighter. 

Not wanting to sound like a jealous maniac, Tweek debated what to say. His mind was reeling with thoughts of Clyde with Craig, his heart riddled with self-doubt. “I, I dunno,” he finally sniffed, deciding he would tell him another time. “Lunch must almost be over. We should go.” 

Craig stood up and offered a hand to Tweek, but instead of just pulling him up, he also pulled him into a hug. Again he rested his head on Tweek’s, and he swayed back and forth gently with him in his arms. “You can always talk to me. I’m here,” he said. It had been weird to hear him say such affectionate things when they first got together, just because he seemed to be such a deadpan kind of guy, but on the inside, Tweek soon realized, Craig was a teddy bear. Or maybe he was only a teddy bear for him. 

Tweek looked into Craig’s eyes when he put a finger under his chin and made him look up at him. “I’m here.” And then he pecked Tweek on the lips, leaving the boy slightly flushed and trembling for a different reason. “Now let’s go to class. I don’t wanna ruin your perfect attendance record.”

They held hands in the hallway on the way back. As it turned out, Tweek forgot his backpack in his locker. They were late anyway. 

* * *

 

_BUTTERS_

After school it was the same old routine again. Butters hated it, but there wasn’t much he could do until he turned 18. Sitting in his room, he decided he would rather not go downstairs to eat dinner that night, partially because he had eaten a really good muffin at lunch and mostly because, of course, his parents. He didn’t count on it, but he was hoping Kenny would come to his room again that night. It was Friday, though, and Kenny, always the popular guy, probably had other places to be. 

It turned out, though, that he didn’t. Butters refused dinner like he had planned and, after practicing his sign language for a while, was changing into his pajamas when Kenny tapped on his window. Startled but delighted, Butters made his way to the window and opened it, letting Kenny in and smiling gleefully. “Gee whiz, Ken, I didn’t think you would come today!” he whispered, afraid of letting his parents know there was someone in his room. “I thought, you know, ya have friends to see ‘n’ stuff! What’re you doin’ here, anyway? What’re you lookin’ at, Ken?” he realized Kenny’s gaze had trailed downward and then blushed when he remembered he had been changing when he let Kenny in and was still in his boxers. “Oh, hamburgers! Sorry, Ken — “ he began, but he noticed Kenny laughing to himself and stopped.

“Put some pants on, Butters. I’m taking you somewhere.”

“Oh, gee, I dunno, I’ll get grounded if my parents find out I left the house at night, and where are you gonna take me anyway?” he stuttered, brushing his knuckles together repeatedly in the way that he tended to do.

Kenny flopped down on Butters’s bed, shrugging. “Aren’t you grounded anyway?” he pointed out, opening the drawer of the bedisde table as if he expected to find anything interesting in there. There were socks. 

“Th-That’s a good point! Hang on a second, Ken,” Butters said excitedly, feeling his heart flutter in his chest at the thought of disobeying his parents twice in one night. He quietly opened his dresser and pulled on his normal black jeans, then turned around to face Kenny, who was sitting sprawled out on his bed with his ankles crosseed. “Alright, I’m ready! Where are we goin’?” 

“Well, that’s for me to know and for you to find out, isn’t it?” Kenny smirked at him. He always seemed to pretend to be aloof, but Butters felt deep down that Kenny was just hiding something underneath that persona. Nevertheless, he nodded his head and watched as Kenny gracefully climbed out of his window and down the tree that was, now that he was considering reaching it from his window, quite a distance away. 

“Uh, I-I dunno about this,” he said as he tentatively stepped a foot out his window, attempting to touch at least a leaf of the tree with the tip of his toe but failing miserably. He was about to withdraw and call it quits when he noticed Kenny climbing back up the tree to sit on the branch closest to the window. 

“Hey, look, sit on the window sill first,” he instructed him with more patience than Butters had ever experienced, and Butters followed. After doing so, he realized he could reach the branch easily and leaned to grab it, but he almost toppled over off the ledge. Once he steadied himself, he crossed his arms and looked at Kenny with a disngruntled huff, to which Kenny responded with a grunt and moved closer to him on the branch. 

“C’mere. I won’t let you fall,” he reassured him, holding out a hand to him. Butters realized the branch was much thicker than he initially thought because it didn’t even dip under Kenny’s weight. He didn’t know why his parents had let such a large tree grow by his bedroom window, but now that he thought of it, he figured they were under the impression it would block him from exiting his room instead of help him. 

Not for the first time, Butters mentally shook his head at how ignorant his parents were to his autonomy as a human being.

Eventually Kenny coaxed him out of the window and onto the tree branch, which began to dip underneath the weight of both of them, and helped him down the tree with minimal scratches and scuffs. Butters noticed immediately two errors he had made in agreeing to this expedition. 1) He had completely forgotten to bring any sort of footwear. Not even socks. He was barefoot in ankle-high snow, and 2) he had also not thought to bring a damn jacket, even. He was outside in his too-small Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer pajama shirt and black skinny jeans with holes in them. At least it had long sleeves.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kenny told him, apparently sensing that Butters was starting to freeze. “We’re going to be indoors for this. I’ll carry you if your feet get too cold,” he added and started walking.

Truthfully, Butters wasn’t sure how long they walked because it felt like forever, but he assumed Kenny wouldn’t drag him through the snow for that long, so it was probably a reasonable amount of time. He knew where they were supposed to be going before they arrived; he saw the multiple cars parked on the curb of a house, noticed the people entering and leaving in groups, and most importantly, saw that all of the lights in the house were on. 

“Ah, here we are,” Kenny said to him, hooking his arm with Butters’s and leading him not to the doorstep but instead to what Butters assumed was the basement. 

Kenny knocked on the door. Someone cracked it open to see who it was, but upon seeing Kenny at the door immediately opened it all the way and greeted him with a smile and a hardy laugh. “What’s up, man? How’s it going? Who’s this you’ve got with you? Sibling?”

“No, just a friend of mine who needs a pick-me-up,” Kenny looked at Butters, shivering in his rather thin clothing, noticed how good he looked in those jeans, how cute he managed to act even when his teeth were chattering in a feeble attempt to create warmth for his body in some way. “A good one, too. Get him a beanbag, and a warm blanket. A pair of shoes and a coat for the trip home would be nice, too.”

His friend, a tall man with a thick beard and an accent that Butters assumed to be of Arab origin, laughed loudly. “Silly Kenny. You brought your friend here expecting to go home tonight? No way. I’m not letting y’all miss the party because of a curfew!”

As Butters was ushered in and sat down next to Kenny in a bean bag made of purple fabric, he realized he had gotten himself into more than he expected. His thigh pressed up against Kenny’s, and he found comfort in the familiarity of his friend’s presence. The unfamiliar surroundings had his head spinning and heart pounding with nervousness. Not going home tonight? Oh boy. “Gee, Kenny, I’ll get grounded if my parents find out I was out tonight!” he shouted over the general chatter of the strangers in the room, all of them with a drink in their hand or a cigarette in their mouth. 

Someone threw a nicely pattered comforter over them, and Kenny wrapped it around himself and Butters snugly, leaving room for them to move their arms, but otherwise keeping them tightly together. “Hey, Aden, mind handing me something? Whatever is fine,” he said to his friend who had answered the door.

Butters started to shake with anxiety and clung to Kenny. “Where are we? Who are these people? Am I gonna get in trouble?” he asked. 

Kenny put an arm around Butters’s shoulders. It was strangely reassuring. “That’s Aden, one of my good friends. He works as the CEO at some construction company, really great guy. Met him on accident when I was smoking on one of the construction grounds his company built on, and he had just moved here, never thought about smoking, and I was so worried that he’d chew me out, I let him have some. Now look at him. He’s a party animal. I have created a monster.” He laughed as he recounted the story, but all Butters was thinking was about how Kenny had been doing drugs.

“Th-That’s nice and all, but are these bad drugs?” 

“Weed? Nah. He doesn’t even really smoke much at all, just hosts the parties,” Kenny told him as someone he presumably knew handed him a grinder and some paper for rolling his own joint. “And don’t worry. I know these people, and I wouldn’t let them hurt you, even if they wanted to” he assured Butters as he rolled a joint and took a quick hit. “Wanna try some?” he offered.

“No thanks, Ken, I think I’ll just stay here and make sure you’re all right,” Butters politely refused. If this is what he was going to be doing all night, he wasn’t sure if he was glad he left his house. He had heard some pretty terrible things about weed and wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t, so he didn’t want to risk it. 

Kenny didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged and took another drag of his joint, breathing out of his mouth slowly, letting out a cloud of smoke that Butters found quite aesthetically pleasing.

The smell was overwhelming, kind of rancid, but Butters didn’t mind it. He chatted with Kenny for a while, noticing the way he smiled more freely, and thought that if weed could do this to Kenny, he was a little bit scared of what it could do to him. 


	3. CHAPTER II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan and Kyle Get Their Very Own Chapter™
> 
> STAN: “Not all of us have vowed to a life of celibacy, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to give yall something to read at least!!!!
> 
> comment telling me if you like this format more and I can start writing each chapter focused on a specific ship like this or go back to the original

_STAN_

Fridays were always the best nights for Stan and Kyle. They walked together to Stan’s from school, threw their school bags on the floor, kicked off their shoes, and plopped down on the couch for a while. Usually they had some idle conversation and dozed off on the couch until the sun was already down, when Stan would wake up and go to the kitchen to start making food of some kind. Sharon and Randy never questioned the kids anymore; after about a year of that routine, they grew used to the boys squished on the couch, Kyle always wearing funny Christmas socks, and Stan usually passing out before he could get comfortable. He tended to fall asleep with his head on the arm of the chair, his legs pulled together close to his body, giving most of the couch to Kyle. Sometimes Kyle fell asleep with his head on the other side of the couch, and sometimes he rested his head on Stan’s lap, but either way he never woke up when Stan got up to cook.

This time was no different. Stan woke up in the quiet darkness of the living room, noticing that the TV was off, the lights off, and not a sound came from anywhere in the house. He wondered where everyone was but decided to shrug it off, moving Kyle’s feet off of his lap gently and getting up to go to the kitchen.

He opened the fridge to survey his options, then opened the cabinets to do the same. On the microwave it said it was about 8 in the evening, noticeably later than usual, and since Kyle wasn’t awake yet, Stan figured he must have been pretty sleepy to have slept in so long, so he grabbed his phone and turned on some music to play while he cooked.

In the cabinet he found a box of pancake mix and decided that it would suffice. He read the instructions on the box and pulled out all the necessary measuring cups and ingredients, plus a bag of chocolate chips because he knew Kyle would like that. He nodded his head and swayed his hips along with the music, singing the lyrics quietly while he measured out the right amounts of mix and milk and a proportional amount of chocolate chips to go with it. The beat of the music always seemed to overtake him, even when it was just a quiet background noise to keep his mind occupied during other activities, and he found himself wholly enjoying waiting for the pancakes to heat up to perfection as he sat on the kitchen counter and sang along shamelessly. 

“Hey, I need you now,” he breathed quietly, trying not to wake up Kyle, and flipped a pancake, “I’ve waited oh so long, yeah. Baby love, I need you now, I’ve waited oh so long—“ Stan turned around and found Kyle, leaning on the wall, watching Kyle with an amused expressed and mussed hair. Shaking his head, Stan grabbed Kyle’s hand and spun him around in a circle, grinning as he sang, “Swear to the moon, the stars, the suns, and the daughters, our love is deeper than the oceans of water.”

He let go of Kyle’s hand and turned up the music since he was awake. “How long have you been watching me, you creep? I was trying to keep the music down so you could sleep.”

Kyle walked over to the stove and nodded approvingly when he saw the chocolate chip pancake in the pan. “Just a few seconds. You were kind of loud getting the pan out,” he said, taking a few chocolate chips from the bag by the stove and eating them by themselves. “Nice music. Did you have someone in mind when you made this playlist?”

Stan snorted. “Not really. I just liked the beat. Also, you’re in my way. I need to flip that pancake. Get me a plate?” 

“Sure,” Kyle grabbed one from the cabinet above him but pointedly avoided moving just to annoy Stan, and Stan couldn’t figure out if the “sure” was in regards to his claim that he hadn’t been thinking of anyone in particular in mind when he made his playlist (which, for the most part, was true, kind of) or if it was an answer to his asking for a plate.

“Anyway, do you wanna watch movies or play video games? I really don’t wanna think about homework at the moment, to be honest,” Stan looked at Kyle quickly before putting the first pancake on the plate Kyle handed him. 

“It feels like a movie night to me, man,” Kyle answered him. “Also, why are all these songs love songs? You sure you’re over Wendy?”

“Dude,” Stan sighed. “Yes, I’ve told you already. I’m not into her. For real.”

“What made you decide that? Y’all have gotten back together so many times, I’m never sure if you mean it when you say that.”

“What made me decide that is that I realized I’d only been with her out of convenience, you know?” Kyle shook his head like he didn’t, so Stan continued. “Well, it’s like, Wendy and I had been ‘together’ for so long that it started to feel like it would be less work to be with her than find someone else and start all the way over. I didn’t wanna deal with rejection, so I kind of just went with it when she pestered me about dating, but I guess I finally realized I was wasting my time with someone I’ve not been into since middle school.”

“This shit goes way over my head, dude.” Kyle ripped off a piece of one of the pancakes Stan had finished making and ate it, then gave him a thumbs up. 

“Not all of us have vowed to a life of celibacy, you know,” Stan laughed obnoxiously, making eye contact with Kyle and laughing harder when he saw his jaw had dropped in mock-offense.

“You take that back right now! It’s not my fault no one likes me!” Kyle grabbed a spatula from the drawer he was leaning against and brandished it against Stan as a weapon. “Take it back, or I take on my true form and destroy you!”

“Never!” Stan’s face had reddened from his laughter, and he poured a little more pancake mix into the pan before grabbing the spatula he had been using and holding it out like a sword. 

At that, Kyle lunged at him with the spatula and grunted in annoyance when he backed away. “I’m gonna fucking fight you for that,” he ranted, sounding genuinely angry, but Stan knew he was joking. They slapped each other with spatulas for a few minutes until they had to stop so Stan could finish the pancake that was on the stove.

“Oh my god,” Kyle said, dropping his spatula and lifting his hands to cover his face, presumably from laughter.

“What?” asked Stan, who would be alarmed if he wasn’t familiar with Kyle’s general reaction to realizing something hilarious was happening.

“Remember Human Kite?”

Stan burst out laughing, unable to control it. “Oh my god, remember Toolshed? I fucking can’t anymore!” 

They stayed in the kitchen for a while, laughing and remembering the way they used to play as kids, and Stan couldn’t help but think about how, in the grand scheme of things, they didn’t have much time left together like this. He knew he would miss it so damn much, but he didn’t know how to tell Kyle that the boy felt like his other half. Everything was so natural for them that it felt weird to think about them growing apart, both physically and emotionally. 

“Hey dude, let’s go to your room and watch some Netflix,” Kyle finally told him after they had finished eating their pancakes. 

“Alright, you go up there and pick something out while I rinse off these dishes real quick,” Stan told him. Kyle nodded his head and left Stan to his thoughts for a few more seconds, during which Stan debated how to tell his best friend how deeply he would miss him when he left for college, how wrong it would feel not to see him every day, and, as weird as it may sound, how even the annoying things that Kyle did brightened his day like nothing else could. He finished rinsing off the dishes and stared at the sink for a moment, deep in thought. 

What was the thing that he and Kyle bonded over the most? Stan thought about it for a minute, and he realized it was too obvious: music. He needed to make a playlist to tell Kyle how he felt, and he was going to start with the song that he’d been playing earlier, the first one that had him questioning  _why_ he listened to romantic music in spite of being single for months, the first one that had him grabbing his best friend’s hand and pulling him in to a dance, even a short one.

His train of thought was brough to a wreck when he heard Kyle calling from upstairs, “Since you’re taking so long, can you text my mom real quick and tell her I’ll come by sometime tomorrow?”

“I got you,” Stan yelled back, disregarding that his parents probably wouldn’t appreciate the noise level. He dug Kyle’s phone from the couch cushions like one of them always did on Friday nights and swiped to unlock it. What he didn’t expect to see was that the phone opened up to the last song Kyle had been listening to.

 _Just a Friend to You_  by Meghan Trainor? That wasn’t like his normal music taste, and Stan was a little bit thrown off. He scrolled down the YouTube page and clicked on the description which showed the lyrics.

__**W** hy you always making me laugh?  
_Swear you’re catching feelings  
I_ _loved you from the start_

_**S** o it breaks my heart_

__**W** hen you say I’m just a friend to you  
_‘Cause friends don’t do the things we do  
_ _Everybody knows you love me too_

Stan bit his lip. He hated how his heart fluttered when he saw those lyrics, but he knew he shouldn’t pry anymore and went ahead and texted Sheila. He started up the stairs but stopped for a second, noticing that his heart woulnd’t stop beating irregularly; he bit his lip again to keep back a smile because he didn’t know who else that song could be about in Kyle’s mind, and though he’d never considered it, he realized his heart was really warm at the thought of Kyle feeling that way about him.

His heartbeat didn’t steady as he walked up the stairs, but he took a deep breath in an attempt to act normal, act like seeing those lyrics hadn’t shaken his world up a little bit. Clearing his throat, he pushed open the door to his bedroom and found Kyle already under the comforter, snuggled up like he was in his own room. “I texted her for you, dude,” Stan said, taking off his socks and his hat and throwing them by the foot of the bed next to Kyle’s socks, hat, and coat. “What did you pick out to watch?”

“See for yourself,” Kyle grinned, pointing at the TV while Stan climbed under the blanket alongside him. On the TV was none other than Kyle’s favorite movie: Mean Girls. And normally Stan would have protested or made fun of him in the gentle way that he did, but his mind was still reeling with ideas of what could possibly be the justification for Kyle’s choice in music. 

“Hey,” Stan felt Kyle’s hand on his arm. “You okay?” he asked him with genuinity in his voice. 

Stan looked up to meet his eyes, smiling warmly, but hesitant to reply. “Yeah, I’m good, just realized I left my phone downstairs,” he laughed to diffuse his anxiety and felt his heart slow down. “Ah, oh well. You’re the only person I would need to text anyway. You still wanna watch this gay movie again?”

“You bet I do,” Kyle clicked the play button on the remote and began watching the movie, oblivious to what was going on in Stan’s brain as he laid next to him. Suddenly all he could think was that maybe the reason he was so worried about losing Kyle was a lot deeper than he originally thought. 


	4. CHAPTER III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TWEEK: "'I'm just scared of losing you to him.'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this is good rip

_TWEEK_

* * *

 

“Well, look, Tweek, even if North Korea were to launch missiles at America, we have a pretty good missile interception system. We’ll be okay, babe,” Craig told Tweek as they walked hand-in-hand home from school. They both took an extra class and got out of school later than their other friends (Tweek had really wanted to continue studying Spanish, and Craig just needed lots of science classes). Now, they were walking to Tweek’s house for some much-needed alone time together because they hadn’t had a night in for a while, and Tweek was growing progressively more and more anxious about Craig wanting Clyde instead of him.

He still hadn’t said anything about Clyde specifically, though, instead attributing his anxiety to Kim Jong Un and his plans to blow up America. His hand was warm in Craig’s, and his heart fluttered when he remembered he had brownie mix at home and could make brownies for his boy; Craig always dipped a finger in the mix, making Tweek grunt at him with disapproval, but he found it endearing anyway. Craig always said Tweek was a wonderful baker, and brownies were his favorite. 

“What’s on your mind?” Craig asked him after a few minutes of silence while Tweek thought about baking when they got home. 

“I wanna make some brownies!” he exclaimed excitedly, loving the idea of how content Craig was when he cooked for him. Craig smiled at that. They walked in a comfortable silence the rest of the way home, and when they finally made it, Tweek fumbled with the keys for a moment before managing to unlock the door. 

Both boys dropped their backpacks on the floor, and Craig took off his blue coat, underneath which he was wearing a tight long-sleeved black shirt. Tweek thought he looked really nice in it, and since his parents weren’t there to comment about how gay they were, Tweek looked up at Craig in a silent request for a kiss.

Over the course of the years, they’d developed a sort of system. They never did more than hug and occasionally kiss, but when Tweek did want a kiss, he would look up at Craig with his lips slightly pouted, and Craig would always lean down and give him a peck on the lips. He did time too, and Tweek would never not shiver with happiness when he got a kiss from Craig. The novelty still hadn’t worn off. When they kissed, even though it was always just a quick peck like that, Tweek felt his heart to flips and tingles in his fingers. He never knew how to ask Craig to kiss him for longer, and he was always too nervous to anyway.

Tweek took Craig’s hand and guided him into the kitchen, and they chattered away about everything and nothing while Tweek clambered around to grab the ingredients for the brownies. Usually when he made them, he made them by scratch, but sometimes he liked the quick preparation time that came with getting the brownie mix. He watched Craig hop onto the counter and felt his heart skip a beat at how handsome his boyfriend was, thought about how lucky he was that this boy chose him, a silly nerd, a spaz, a kid who bakes cupcakes for North Korea, over anyone else in the world. Mixing the eggs with the vegetable oil in a steady rhythm, he pressed his lips together; his heart fell a little when he thought again about Clyde and how much time he was spending with Craig. 

He dumped the brownie mix powder into a bowl, making some of it float up into his face from the impact on the bottom of the bowl, and mixed it with the other ingredients, then poured it into a glass baking pan and put it in the oven. Craig smiled at him fondly and laughed quietly. “You got that brownie powder all over yourself,” he said, walking up close to him, gently brushing some of it off of Tweek’s cheeks. “You’re precious,” he told him, taking his hand. “We should watch a movie, but after you change out of your brownie mix shirt.”

“I didn’t get that much mix on my shirt,” Tweek huffed, pulling Craig up the stairs nevertheless. They went into his room, Tweek heading for the closet, Craig heading for the bed, and it was all right. There was a bit of a chill in the air because Tweek didn’t keep a curtain over his window for fear of people (like Kim Jong Un) being able to sneak up on him without his knowing, and the window was always layered with frost. Tweek turned his back to Craig and unbuttoned his olive green shirt, dropping it to the floor and opening the door to his closet, during which time Craig turned on the TV and picked out a movie.

Tweek picked out a warm hoodie to wear, one that, of course, advertised the Tweaks’ Coffee Company, but was still really comfortable, and pulled it over his head as he turned around to go sit in bed with Craig. His jeans were still lightly dusted with brownie mix, but he really didn’t care. 

“What are we gonna watch?” Tweek asked Craig, sitting by him so he could lean into his embrace. He wasn’t particularly concered with what they were watching because he knew he would probably fall asleep until Craig woke him up to check on the brownies, but he always expressed an interest.

Craig pulled a blanket up around their shoulders and kissed Tweek on the temple. “I dunno, why don’t you pick?”

Tweek blinked. “Oh, okay. Um... Have you seen any of The Office?”

“Nah, sounds good to me,” Craig found it in Tweek’s Recently Watched and smiled a bit, clicking on it and turning on the subtitles because for some reason Tweek always wanted them on. 

They started at season one, episode one, and Craig found himself quite enjoying the show, but he couldn’t help but notice that Tweek seemed a little bit off. He knew the boy was thinking about something, knew he was a bit upset, but he didn’t wanna send his boyfriend into a panic. Gently, he placed a hand on Tweek’s knee. “Hey, what’s up? You seem a bit upset.”

Tweek choked on his breath, partially because of the question and mostly because of the hand on his knee. He put his hand on top of Craig’s on his knee, unsure of how to tell him that he was really worried about his “friendship” with Clyde, so naturally he screamed before saying, “I, Craig, well-ah! Well, y-you hang out with Clyde a lot, and-ah!” he said as if that was supposed to make sense.

Craig looked him with a strange look in his eye, and it seemed as if he knew what Tweek was trying to say, but he kept quiet while Tweek found his words. He moved his hand off of his knee and grabbed Tweek’s hand in it while Tweek blabbered about how much time Craig had been spending with Clyde recently, how he was worried that Craig had gotten tired of him or was thinking about being with Clyde. He just listened, rubbing his thumb over Tweek’s hand in circles to make sure he knew he was still paying attention, and when Tweek seemed to run out of words to say, he looked Craig in the eyes and smiled gingerly.

“Thank you, Craig,” he sighed, biting his lip. “I’m just scared of losing you to him.”

Pulling him into a hug, Craig muttered into his hair, “You won’t, not in a million years, not to anyone.”

Tweek shook his head into Craig’s chest, causing him to pull back. “Was that a doubtful headshake?” he raised an eyebrow. Tweek’s gaze shifted downward to the floor, away from Craig’s eyes, in an attempt to hide his self-consciousness. “Hey,” Craig put his hand on Tweek’s chin and brought him to face him. “I love you, Tweek. That’s not going to change. Clyde and I are, well... I didn’t wanna tell you, but, uh, we’re planning something for Christmas, a Christmas party, and I wanted to surprise everyone, specifically you, so please don’t tell anyone, okay?”

It took a moment for Tweek to process what Craig was saying, and he leaned his face into Craig’s hand, then lifted his gaze to meet Craig’s for a second. Then, without really thinking about it, he leaned forward and grabbed Craig’s face in his hands, kissing him full on the mouth, letting his lips linger for a second before pulling away and blushing profusely. He tugged on his own hair nervously for a second while he looked at Craig’s shocked expression, his mouth a little agape and his cheeks a little red, eyes wide. 

Craig leaned back in and kissed Tweek again, this time slowly, holding his jaw with one hand and putting the other on his leg. Tweek’s heart started working overtime, pumping so quickly he could feel it in his throat, yet he didn’t want Craig to stop, so he put tentative hand on his shoulder. He’d never done this before, barely even thought of it, since he didn’t think it was going to happen, so he didn’t know what to do, where to put his hands. Then Craig licked his lip, and Tweek knew he was blushing furiously but opened his mouth for him, letting him lick into his mouth, their tongues meeting fleetingly. Tweek grabbed Craig closer and tugged on the hair at the nape of his neck, breathing a little heavily at how passionately his boyfriend was kissing him, all previous thoughts of Clyde and Craig completely gone. Craig had started to push him down onto his back when they heard an obnoxious beep coming from downstairs and jumped apart. 

Tweek looked at Craig for a moment, seeing him a bit of a new light, and clearing his throat a little awkwardly. “I, uh, s-sorry, Craig!” he said, suddenly very aware that his pants were a bit tighter than usual and shouting, “The brownies!” as an excuse to hop up and run downstairs and breathe for a moment.

He looked at his pants and decided to ignore it, praying it would go down by the time Craig came downstairs, grabbing a couple of padded gloves and getting the brownies out of the stove. When he heard Craig come downstairs, he pretended to be preoccupied with putting a toothpick in the center of the brownie pan to check to see if it was done, which it was indeed.

“Was that okay, babe?” Craig asked him, and when Tweek turned around he saw that his boyfriend, too, was still a bit red in the face from their little makeout session. 

“Uh, y-yeah,” Tweek replied, pulling on his hair but trying to seem subtle about it while at the same time wanting Craig to know just how much he had enjoyed it.

Like always, though, Craig seemed to get it, and he wrapped his arms tightly around Tweek, and they stayed like that for a few minutes until Craig kissed the top of Tweek’s head and looked him in the eyes. “Are the brownies ready?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Tweek stuttered out again, pulling out of the hug to cut the brownies before they cooled, but mostly he wanted his heart to calm down. His head was pounding, and he could feel his heartbeat throughout his whole body, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to grab Craig and kiss him  _again_  or if he wanted to crawl under his bed and stay there for at least three years.

Craig put his hand on Tweek’s to make him let go of the knife that he was using to cut the brownies into ragged squares, then pressed their lips together. They stayed like that for a while, kissing each other gently in the kitchen, and each time Craig pulled away, Tweek leaned in and kissed him again and again and again. 


	5. CHAPTER IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> butters and kenny!!(!!!!)
> 
> the songs i referenced are If I Go, I'm Going - Gregory Alan Isakov and Empty - Ray LaMontagne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp i hope yall like this too!!  
> thanks to all of you commenting, it means a lot to me and makes me want to write more!!!

_BUTTERS_

* * *

Butters and Kenny's Friday night turned out to be much wilder than Butters expected. 

Butters sat there next to Kenny for a while, watching him gradually smile more as he smoked more. It was an odd thing to see Kenny do because now that he thought of it, Butters had never seen his friend smile for real. Given, he was most likely high off of his ass at the moment, but Butters really thought he was kind of cute like this. He kept putting a hand on Butters' arm, pointing out people that he knew, laughing when Butters said pretty much anything. It was pretty nice, even though he was the only sober one there except, presumably, Aden, according to Kenny, but he hadn't seen him since he walked in.

Squirming a little under the blanket now that he had warmed up, Butters tried to think of what he was going to do for the remainder of his time there. Half of him was terrified of his parents noticing his absence, and the other half of him kind of thought this was fun, seeing this side of Kenny, even if he was stuck under a stiflingly hot blanket that he originally appreciated but from which he now craved escape. 

"Oh, you want out?" Kenny asked him, and when he saw Butters nod gingerly in response, he threw the blanket off and stood up, offering a hand to help Butters up. "Awesome. Now the real fun begins."

"Gee, Kenny, what do you mean?" Butters' eyes widened, thinking about all the crazy things that could mean, coming from Kenny. "I- I don't wanna do no crack cocaine or nothin'!"

Kenny placed a hand over his heart and likely would have gasped in fake-upset if he hadn't been biting the tip of his blunt to keep it in his mouth. "You think I do crack? I do not! In fact, I thought to bring you to this party specifically because no one here does, but also because there's something here that I think you'll quite like. But first, a tour!"

He was so high, grinning at Butters, focusing a little too hard on his face as he spoke, but he took Butters' hand and led him upstairs into the actual house, which, contrary to Butters' expectations, was not filled with a bunch of drunkards having sex but instead people who seemed to be pretty close friends, all apparently focused on something in the front room. Kenny showed Butters to the bathroom, then the kitchen, where there were multiple stacks of knock-off brand sodas and chips and salsa. Then he took him to the living room, and if Butters had fully understood the situation, he would have laughed; there was a giant circle of people surrounding a game of what was apparently "Dungeons and Dragons," and everyone was intensely focused on the game, looking away only to give the blunt to someone else or to take a bite of their chips and salsa.

"Well, Kenny, I don't know how to play this Dunjers and Draggers!" Butters started clinking his knuckles together again and felt a bit left out. He knew it was because his parents never let him do anything as a child, but there wasn't anything he could say or do to remedy it, and he also knew that no one would feel like teaching him, judging by their entranced states at the moment.  

"What? Oh, that's for nerds," Kenny laughed easily, and it lifted Butters' spirits a bit. "No, follow me," he said to him, though he was still holding his hand, and took him up a staircase in the dark. Butters tripped at least twice, but Kenny checked both times to make sure he was alright instead of making fun of him, which warmed his heart. They stopped in front of a closed door, and it was so dark that Butters almost considered asking Kenny where the light switch was, but Kenny said, "Prepare to be amazed!" dramatically and piqued Butters' curiosity even more.

He threw the door open and flipped on the light switch to the room, and Butters couldn't help but gasp a little at what he saw. Kenny, presumably having seen it many times, went to the stereo by the window on the far side of the room and plugged in his crappy android phone to play some music. For the first time in a long, long time, Butters smiled genuinely. His eyes watered a bit, and he hastened to blink away the moisture before breathing in heavily and listening to the beat of the music.

The walls were lined with fish tanks. There were fish of all types in all sorts of differently sized tanks. Butters started at the leftmost side, next to the stereo where Kenny stood, and stared in awe at the fish. He'd never been allowed any pets, never even seen fish in a fish tank because even when he saw his friends, they had animals like cats or dogs. When he asked his parents for fish one Christmas as a young child, they'd told him fish were lame, that Butters was too irresponsible to take care of a pet anyway, and dismissed his request as if it was ridiculous. That was years ago, though, and the fact that Kenny remembered how much Butters had wanted fish, found this place, specifically sought him out to show him. . . Well, it made Butters' heart swell with affection for the tall, skinny boy standing beside him. He cast his gaze down for a moment before looking back up at the fish, but it seemed that Kenny had even more planned, because he flipped a switch behind one of the fish tanks and shut off the lights in the bedroom, leaving the fish tanks illuminated by a fluorescent purple light. 

Butters walked along the rows of fish tanks, marveling at the beauty of the different types of fish, the guppies, the platies, the angelfish, the bettas, all of them. All of them were beautiful. And when he had finally looked at all of them once, twice, and then again, he turned around to look at Kenny, who stood leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, just watching Butters with a slight smile. The twang of the guitar in the background was almost in tune with Butters' heartbeats, which he could feel in his ears, but he didn't know why. He was so choked up over this that he couldn't do anything but walk up to Kenny and hug him.

_I will go if you ask me to_   
_I will stay if you dare_   
_And if I go, I'm goin' crazy_   
_Let my darlin' take me there_

_If I go, I'm goin' crazy_   
_Let my darlin' take me there_

Gently, at first, he had his arms wrapped around Kenny's waist, but he rested his head on its side on Kenny's chest, and it took a minute for Kenny to wrap his arms around Butters in return. "Thank you, Ken," Butters said quietly, biting his lip because he didn't know if he wanted to cry or not. 

Kenny didn't seem to know what to do. He just held Butters awkwardly, and they stood there like that as the music changed over and over. Kenny's heartbeat fluttered too much for it to be normal, but Butters wasn't sure if it was because he had smoked so much or for another reason.

 

Furrowing his eyebrows, Butters looked up at Kenny. He didn't know how to thank him, didn't know what to say, so when Kenny sat down on the floor cross-legged, Butters did the same, sitting to face him. They kind of just sat there, looking at each other, listening to the music and basking in the glow of the fish tank lights.

 

"Ken?" Butters asked cautiously. "Ken, I don't know what to say, but I. . . I'm kinda sleepy," he continued, just to have something to say. Kenny's earlier rambunctious attitude had disappeared, his blunt finished, but he still seemed a bit high. At Butters' words he nodded and disappeared downstairs, leaving Butters alone in the room, surrounded by fish and listening silently to the music that Kenny had left playing.

_Will I always feel this way_   
_So empty, so estranged?_

  
_Well, I looked my demons in the eyes,_   
_laid bare my chest,_   
_said "Do your best, destroy me._   
_You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,_   
_I must admit you kind of bore me."_

Kenny came back upstairs with the beanbag and the blanket that they had used earlier, along with another blunt, and sat down with Butters. He laid down on the the beanbag, using it as a pillow, and invited Butters to do the same. When he did, Kenny threw the blanket over both of their feet and lit up again. He blew clouds of smoke in the air over them, sometimes sticking his fingers in the cloud as if to try to draw in it, but it just made it dissipate more quickly. All Butters did was sit and watch him.

_Well, it's the hurt I hide that fuels the fires inside me_

"Wanna try?" Kenny offered him, maintaining his gaze on the ceiling but holding the blunt in between his index and middle fingers to signify that Butters could take it if he wanted.

He considered it for a second but thought better of it and politely declined, to which Kenny shrugged like Butters had expected. 

After a few minutes came Butters' questions: "Ken, why do you like smoking? What is it like?" 

Kenny rolled onto his side to face Butters more and replied, "Why don't you smoke? What's it like?"

"Well, I dunno, Kenny! I just remember Mr. Mackey tellin' us, 'Drugs are bad, mmkay?' and I never did it!" 

Kenny's response was a snort. "We went behind the school and smoked cigarettes one time when he said that." He giggled for a few seconds and then continued seriously, "I just smoke because it's a nice feeling, I guess. I kinda quit caring and enjoy myself for a while."

It took Butters a minute to process that, but then he remembered that Kenny was under a lot of pressure at school. Everyone thought Kyle was the smartest kid at school, but Kenny gave him a serious run for his money, and since he was poor, people tended to forget just how perspicacious Kenny really was. So he thought it made sense, then, that Kenny would smoke to get away from the pressure that came with the responsibility of being the smart kid but still having to deal with everything else in his life; Butters knew Kenny had moved out of his parents' house as soon as he turned 18, and he worked two jobs, so when he thought about it, Kenny bringing him here was an even bigger gesture than he had originally thought. 

". . . I thought you would want to smoke more since your parents are kind of uptight, but that's okay. You don't have to," Kenny finished. 

Suddenly Butters realized how close he was to Kenny and didn't know how to feel. He felt his heartbeat speed up a little and abruptly blurted out, "Uh, I'm gettin' real sleepy! I'm gonna go ahead and crash now," and rolled over so his back faced Kenny in an attempt to hide his blushing face and his smile at how lovely the night had turned out to be.

* * *

Butters was roused from his sleep by Kenny, though he figured it was unintentional. The lights from the fish tanks were off, and the bedroom light was on, so Butters knew Kenny had been up for a while. He sat up and rubbed his eyes groggily and ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it.

"Oh, shit, sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up," Kenny said to him, holding his phone in his hand. 

"Nah, it's okay. What's the time? Gee, my parents are gonna ground me!" he said after he had the realization that he had stayed the night at a random person's house without even mentioning it to his parents.

"Uh, it's, like," Kenny looked at his phone. "Eight thirty. Wanna go to the park with me?" Unsure of what exactly that entailed, Butters looked at him with pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows. "Oh, come off it already, I just wanna go to the park with you! There won't be drugs or anything, I promise."

"D'you pinky promise?" Butters asked him as he stood up and looked down at himself, a little embarrassed at his attire, but held out his pinky anyway. 

Kenny cocked an eyebrow but hooked his pinky in Butters' anyway and took him downstairs. He said his goodbyes, slapped multiple friends on the back in a friendly gesture, laughed his normal laugh, not the one he laughed the night before, and finally made it to the front door of the house. Upon stepping outside, Butters remembered why he had nearly frozen to death the night before and hesitantly stepped outside on the cold cement porch.

"Damnit, I forgot to grab some shoes for you, but if we go back in we won't get out for another hour," Kenny looked between the closed door and Butters, then shrugged picked Butters up bridal style. 

"Kenny! Wh- What're you doin'?" Butters, startled, protested.

"Don't want your feet to freeze, now, do we?" Kenny said to him, smiling a little bit, a smile that reached his eyes, and set off walking to a park at a location he presumably knew. And usually Butters would be nervous about his situation, worry about how much trouble he would be in when he got home, but when he thought about sitting on the swings with Kenny, his heart was just warm enough that he forgot to be anxious about everything else for a while.


	6. CHAPTER V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KYLE: “Oh my god, Stan, you didn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FORGIVE ME   
> i have to write these in kind of a hurry because i left my laptop at school and i'm on break but i dion't want my dad to walk in and bel ike   
> "what the fuck dude" so yeah here i am sorry for anny mistakes/ badness in writing
> 
> anyway thanks for reading and thank you so much for your comments <3

_STAN_

The days grew shorter, the snows harder, and a month passed. Stan and Kyle had fallen into the routine of studying for about 30 minutes when they got home from school and then ignoring their responsibilities for the duration of the evening. Of course they tended to their homework and whatnot at two in the morning, when Stan called Kyle frantically asking for help on this one Trig/Precalc question that had him particularly stumped, and Kyle would send him a picture of how to work it, and Stan would sigh dramatically because he made a simple addition mistake in his hesitance to get up and grab his calculator.

This weekend, though, was very special and remarkably different from any other weekend the boys had ever had. It was Kyle’s eighteenth birthday, and the night before it was due, they were planning out the party that they were going to throw. 

“No, dude, don’t add emo music to the playlist. Why would you wanna have sad music on your birthday?” Stan pointed out as Kyle tried to add in a song that he deemed “emo.”

“Stan, dude, it’s instrumental. No one’s gonna be dancing anyway. We’ll probably just sit around and talk or something, maybe drink some of that soda,” he snorted, gesturing toward the stacks and stacks of soda that sat in the corner of the kitchen. They were sitting at the kitchen table, some sort of instrumental music in the background, as per Kyle’s request. 

“Do… Do you want it to be that kind of party? I could arrange that for you,” Stan smiled up at Kyle, putting his hand on the table in front of him.

“Hmm,” Kyle furrowed his eyebrows for a second and then scribbled down a song name for the playlist they were composing. “I dunno, are they actually fun? Like, what happens? I’ve been so busy studying, I’ve not been to one.”

This made Stan bite back a smile. He pressed his lips together for a second, chewing gently on his bottom lip, then said, “Well, I’ve only ever heard what my dad says about them. The PC thing, you know,” he looked at Kyle for a confirmation that he knew what Stan was talking about, and at the nod of his head, he continued. “Uh, so there’s lots of dancing, usually someone brings alcohol, but since we’re underage I’m assuming Kenny would be the one to do that. Speaking of whom, have you noticed him and Butters?”

“Dude, yeah, what the fuck? They’re so gay now,” Kyle pursed his lips. “But now that I consider it, they would be cute together. You know? Like, Kenny and Butters both have no friends.”

Stan shook his head in response, smiling. “All of our friends are gay now. Except Cartman, I guess, but does he really count?”

“Watch, he’ll fall for one of us soon enough.”

“Damn, I hope not,” Stan’s eyes widened at the thought of that gross man liking him. Then he felt a little sick at the idea of Cartman liking Kyle. “Uh, anyway, yeah. The party. So, if we make it a dance party, which is code for ‘rave,’ by the way, we’re gonna need some music with an actual beat.”

Kyle looked slightly conflicted at hearing that, and Stan decided not to push it. “You know what, nevermind. Winter formal will be soon, and you can see that at that dance. This one is for you.”

“Oh god, I still need to get a date for that,” Kyle sighed, putting his hands on his cheeks in an expression of his stress at the idea of asking someone to a dance with him.

“Me too, man. If neither of us has a date, we could just go together,” Stan said jokingly, but he really wouldn’t mind being Kyle’s date. In fact, it sounded pretty nice in his head. 

Smiling up at him with a sort of radiance atypical of his norm, Kyle said, “I’d like that. So, let’s finish planning this party…”

* * *

In Stan’s opinion, it turned out beautifully. When he walked into Kyle’s house an hour after leaving to get ready, it was radically different from the way that he had left it that afternoon. It seemed as if Sheila had run streamers across the tops of the walls. The lighting was just right, low enough that it was obviously a special occasion, but not so low that Stan couldn’t see anything.

He was the first to arrive. Kyle saw him and hopped up off the couch, running to him to give him a giant hug. Startled, Stan wrapped his arms around his best friend and hugged him tightly before letting go and smiling at him. “You look, like, wow, you look great, dude,” he grinned.

“Thanks,” Kyle smiled sheepishly. He had taken off his green cap and let his curls fall freely in his face. Stan thought he looked oddly adorable like that, and he took off his cap too, so Kyle wouldn’t be alone. “So where’s my damn gift, Stan?”

“Ah, ah, ah, you don’t get it until after everyone leaves,” Stan told him, then at Kyle’s raised eyebrows, realized how suggestive that sounded. “No, I meant, I have a gift for you, not in the form of sensuality, but I want to give it to you when we’re alone.”

Kyle was about to open his mouth to respond when the door was thrown open and Tweek stumbled in, followed by Craig, who helped him right himself, then both of their parents. They’d all had to get dressed in decent clothes, shave, et cetera, because the parents all wanted pictures of their kids with Kyle on his big day. Craig’s mom handed Kyle a gift, for which Kyle thanked them, then told them they were welcome to sit down if they wanted. Then people began flooding in the door, Cartman and his mom, Token and Bebe, Wendy, Butters and his parents, Jimmy, Clyde, Heidi, and finally Kenny, whose mom showed up but not his dad. Stan smiled at Kyle encouragingly from where he sat on the couch by Cartman and Wendy. 

Once everyone was in, Kyle unwrapped the gifts he’d been given, mostly just cash, but Jimmy got him a new copy of the Torah, and Kenny had given him a rock he picked up on his way there. The parents ushered all of the kids into a group, squishing them all together so that they could fit into the picture, and Stan found himself too close to Wendy for his liking. Pointedly, he put an arm around Kyle’s shoulders and pulled him closer, smiling fakely for the camera, until Sheila and Gerald were content with how many thousands of photos they’d snapped of their baby coming of age. 

The crowd dissipated into their own little groups, and Stan stayed with Kyle as he opened up his new Torah, the kind with the edges of the pages that were the shiny gold material. Gerald must have started the playlist without them noticing because the music was on, and though it was just calming instrumental, Stan thought it was quite nice. When he glanced up for a second, he noticed Craig and Tweek cuddled together on the couch, and the others were sitting in a circle on the floor in the front room, discussing whatever it was they had to discuss.

“So, is this a big deal?” Stan asked, nodding his head to the Torah. Obviously he knew it was important, but he had never been around Kyle while he practiced his faith. 

“Yeah,” Kyle breathed, seemingly enchanted by how beautiful this new Torah was. “I can’t believe it was Jimmy who thought to get me one, though. Want me to read some to you?”

“Sure,” Stan smiled at him, and they moved to sit against the back of the couch, where no one could see them even if they wanted to. They sat there, with their legs pressed together, as Kyle explained the Torah to Stan, and every so often they heard a chorus of laughter coming from the circle of friend who were presumably playing the Cards Against Humanity game that Bebe had brought. The parents who stayed were all upstairs, and as the night grew older, people filtered out in groups. Neither Kyle nor Stan noticed when everyone was gone until there came a knock on the door, which disrupted their Jewish-education session. 

Kyle seemed a bit confused, but he opened the door anyway to find Sharon standing there. She hugged him and wished him a happy birthday, handing him some money before nodding at Stan and heading upstairs to hang out with Sheila, Gerald, and Butters’ parents. 

Suspicious, Kyle looked between Stan and the doorway. “C’mon, my gift for you is in the car,” Stan said, taking Kyle’s hand and guiding him to the car that Sheila had parked in the driveway. 

The snow fell down thickly outside, covering their footprints almost as quickly as they made them. It was so dark outside, and Stan hadn’t realized how much time they’d spent in there looking at the Torah, but he always appreciated learning more about his best friend. The light from the roadside lamps cast a unique glow on Kyle’s face, and if he wasn’t in a hurry to show him what he’d gotten him, he would have stalled just to look at him. 

“Why did she-” Kyle began to ask, but Stan shushed him gently and pulled him into the backseat. 

“Close your eyes,” he said, and when Kyle obeyed, he climbed clumsily into the front seat to grab Kyle’s gift and put it into his arms.

“Oh my  _god_ , Stan, you didn’t,” Kyle’s eyes shot open, and he looked down into his arms, where there sat a kitten, with a tortoiseshell coat of black, honey gold,  and white. Her tail curled around Kyle’s hand as she climbed up his chest and sniffed him curiously.

“Stan, I, I don’t even know what to say,” Kyle stuttered, smiling down at the kitten while she climbed on him. 

Stan put a hand on Kyle’s thigh and squeezed, grinning at him. “Happy birthday Kyle. I got you some things to help take care of her, too. I thought you might want a friend to come with you to college, and I knew you’d wanted a cat for a while.”

Kyle bit his lip and looked at Stan with a burning gaze, leaving Stan taken aback slightly because he wasn’t sure how to take that. They sat there like that while the kitten climbed on both of them, rubbing against Stan’s hand as he pet her absentmindedly, focusing on Kyle. There was something Kyle’s eyes that Stan ver rarely saw, and he didn’t know if it was aimed toward the kitten or him, but he didn’t want to miss it for a second. Kyle grabbed Stan’s free hand and squeezed, then pulled him into a gentle embrace, nudging his face into the crook of Stan’s neck, giggling when the kitten meowed at them for attention and climbed into Kyle’s lap. 

What left Stan breathless was when Kyle left a kiss on his neck, grabbed the kitten, and jumped out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. Stan grinned dumbly, sitting there aimlessly for a moment before grabbing the rest of his gift for Kyle from the front seat and following the boy into the house. 

The kitten was running around the house, sniffing everything, rubbing against the wall, excitedly pawing the gift wrap that Kyle had left on the floor after opening the Torah. Turning to face Stan in the doorway, Kyle said, “Stan, for real, thank you. Help me name her?”

“Well,” Stan walked to Kyle and sat next to him on the couch now that Tweek and Craig weren’t hogging it up. “What vibe do you get from her?”

“Cute vibes,” Kyle sighed happily, watching her run around the house exploring. “I dunno, I wanna give her a name to memorialize that you’re the one who gave her to me. You said she was a friend to go with me to college, and, well, I was expecting that friend to be you, so…”

They watched her for a few minutes until she got bored with exploring and hopped onto the couch with them. “Hey, I know,” Kyle grinned. “Kyne. Don’t you think it’s suitable? It’s an odd combination of our names, but it’s also lore from a game I play.”

“Kyne sounds great,” Stan smiled lopsidedly at him, appreciating how dorky he was, but noticing how cute he was at the same time. He took a mental snapshot of the moment, Kyle smiling at him, snowflakes still sitting in his unruly hair. It wasn’t something Stan got to see much, so he made sure to memorize the way Kyle looked with his hair free like that. 

Kyne settled down in Stan’s lap, pawing him for a moment before curling up into a ball and snoozing while Stan and Kyle pet her affectionately. Eventually the two boys ran out of things to say and sat in silence, listening to the very end of the playlist they’d assembled the day before, the one they completely forgot they’d even left on. When Kyle’s head fell onto his shoulder, Stan started a little, but he realized the boy had simply fallen asleep, and he definitely didn’t mind being his pillow. 

He smiled. Kyle seemed to have had a wonderful birthday, and that made Stan happy. And now he had fallen asleep on his shoulder, and though he was stuck and couldn’t move for fear of waking up both Kyle and and Kyne, he was quite content in his position. 

Eventually he fell asleep too, and he knew that Sheila was going to take pictures of them when she came downstairs finally, but he didn’t really care. 


	7. CHAPTER VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TWEEK: “Stay away from my Craig! He’s my boyfriend, not yours, so keep your dirty hands away from him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what the fuck am i doing with my break
> 
> thanks for reading ily all  
> do yall all wanna go on a big date together sometime? we can order food in flawed vietnamese if you want
> 
> ok im just kidding i have a bf but i love yopu a loty and appreciate you very much now i am going to go eat peppermint bark

_TWEEK_

Craig and Tweek didn’t have any plans for after Kyle’s party, so after watching him open their gift bag stuffed with gift tissue wrap, which just had some cash in it, they didn’t know what to do. They cuddled on the couch for a while, during which time they could just barely hear Kyle’s voice as he explained the Torah to Stan behind the couch, as if they were alone. Tweek thought that was awfully, well… gay. It was fucking gay. Stan never displayed an interest in anyone’s religion. He hadn’t even classified himself as Catholic since elementary school, so when Tweek heard Kyle and only Kyle talking, he knew Stan was paying the most rapt attention to what he had to say, and that was really unusual of him. He made a mental note to mention it to him sometime.

Tweek himself was quite content wrapped up in his boyfriend’s arms, listening to whatever nerd music Kyle had chosen to play through the party. But eventually Craig insisted upon leaving because he “was tired of listening to Kyle talk about his Jew stuff,” so they made their way outside, where the sun was going down, but there was still enough light that they could see. 

“What do you wanna do?” Craig asked him, holding his hand and looking at him attentively. “I don’t have any plans, and you said earlier that you were gonna be bored this weekend, so I assume you don’t either.”

It was true. Tweek had been trying to subtly let Craig know that he was free to do whatever, emphasis on  _whatever_ , so he said he was bored. He was kind of hoping to go home and make out with his boyfriend for a while and then fall asleep next to him, but it seemed Craig had other ideas.

“Babe, do you wanna go on an actual, official date? We haven’t for a while, and we’re already semi-dressed up,” he tugged on Tweek’s hand gently, leading him to the more commercial part of town. It seemed that Tweek’s mind had been made for him, he thought, as he trailed behind Craig and stepped into his footprints in the snow. His ears were already freezing, and he could feel his fingertips and toes starting to freeze as well. Why did he never wear a jacket? He couldn’t answer his own mental question. 

At the moment, he wore a long-sleeved green sweater. It was the same color as his normal attire, the short-sleeved one, but it was made of a heavier material, and his jeans had holes in them, so he found himself shivering violently by the time they arrived in town. Craig noticed how cold he was and pulled Tweek into his chest, rubbing his back affectionately to warm him up a bit. “I’d give you my jacket, but I’m not wearing anything under it,” Craig laughed quietly.

Tweek stared up at him dumbly. “Craig, what the fuck? You’re-ah! You’re gonna freeze! And then you’ll die, and-ah! And I don’t think I can lift your body, I won’t be able to carry it back home-gah! NGH, your parents will be so mad—” 

“C’mon,” Craig said, kissing Tweek on the forehead before leading him into a Vietnamese restaurant, City Phở, that they had been to a few times. “See? Perfectly warm! I’ll be fine.” He ruffled Tweek’s hair with a gentle smile, and it was only after he did that that Tweek realized his head was pounding, the pain starting behind his eyes and bleeding into the front part of his skull. “Two, please,” he heard Craig say to the waitress before following him to a booth and sitting down. 

“Hey, honey, are you okay? You’re really shaky,” Craig noticed, pulling him into the booth next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist to steady him. 

“Are-Are you cold?” Tweek asked him, still thinking about how terrifyingly angry Craig’s parents would be if he left his boyfriend’s body on the ground in the snow. What if he lost it after that because the snow covered it up, and they never found Craig again? They wouldn’t even be able to have a funeral!

“You thinkin’ those funny thoughts again?” Craig said, and from anyone else, it would have sounded harsh, but from him, it was endearing.

Knowing his boyfriend well, Craig ordered phở gà for Tweek and summer rolls for himself in broken, but still grammatically correct, Vietnamese. The waitress smiled at him widely at his attempt to speak her native language and brought them some drinks for free. 

Tweek rested his head on Craig’s shoulder and said, “You know, for someone who’s never taken a foreign language class, you sure do speak well. How did you even manage to get out of those classes, anyway?” 

“Well, my skin is slightly tinted, so I guess the school board members assumed I spoke something other than English and exempted me from the language classes. That’s South Park for you. As for the Vietnamese, I practice it specifically for when we come here. I’m not gonna lie,” Craig let out another one of his charming laughs, and Tweek felt his heart swell at it. He didn’t tend to laugh much around other people, so when he did laugh, even just a chuckle, in public, Tweek hoped everyone heard how lovely his boyfriend was.

They ate their food pretty quickly, Tweek slurping the noodles noisily, occasionally splashing some of the broth on the table and hastening to wipe it away. Craig finished before him and watched him stress about finishing so as to avoid inconveniencing him, but it just made him spill more frequently. When he finally finished, Tweek threw some money onto the table, matching what Craig paid, and they braved the cold weather again.

Now that the sun was almost fully down, Tweek found himself worrying more about, well, everything. Every sound around them made him jump or twitch anxiously, so when he felt hands on his shoulders and heard a “BOO!” he, understandably, screamed and bolted a few feet before turning to see what had actually happened.

It was just Clyde who had startled him, with Token, Bebe, Wendy Heidi, and Nichole following him. The girls didn’t look amused, but Token and Clyde were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe, little clouds of breath puffing out of their mouths as they laughed. 

“Y’all are assholes,” Craig said, looking like he was going to kick them, but Clyde raised his eyebrows pointedly, seemingly trying to communicate something to Craig without saying it. Craig sighed in response. Tweek felt jealousy bubbling up in his stomach when Clyde stood up on his tippy toes to whisper something to Craig. He didn’t do it in a particularly flirtatious way, just seemed like he didn’t want the others to hear, but it didn’t matter to Tweek; Clyde was too close to his man, and he didn’t like it.

The snow fell more aggressively, but Tweek didn’t feel cold. Blood rushed into his ears, his headache forgotten, all previous shakiness having left him, as he watched Craig and Clyde having a quiet whisper argument. Craig looked exasperated, Clyde smug. The others had already started walking away, leaving Tweek there alone, fuming at the way Clyde had been around his boyfriend recently.

Clyde needed to pull his head out of his ass, Tweek thought. He had no right to be all up on Craig, taking time away from their date night to talk about who knows what. And it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten in the way, either! Sometimes Craig had to reject his calls during their hangouts, or, like that one time at the ice cream shop, Craig refused to hang out altogether because _he had to see Clyde_.

It pissed Tweek off. He knew he should be mad at Craig for neglecting him for whatever it was that Clyde wanted, but his anger was wholly directed at Clyde, his stupid handsomeness, his brown eyes and shaggy hair, the scruff that he let grow out on his jaw. 

Just like that, though, Craig was holding hands with him again, and Clyde had scrambled to catch up to his friends a few meters ahead. Tweek didn’t say anything, for once trying to sort out his thoughts before he let them spill out in the disorganized way that he always did. When he got angry, he became strangely articulate. 

“Sometimes he pisses me off,” Craig mumbled, obviously talking about Clyde. “I dunno why he thinks our relationship is his business.” 

That was the final straw for Tweek. He let go of Craig’s hand and strode over to Clyde, grabbing him by the collar and pushing him against a tree in a yard they were walking by. Clyde’s eyes were wide as he tried to figure out what was happening, and he looked even more terrified when he realized it was Tweek who had him in his grip. 

Tweek kept a hand firmly on Cylde’s chest, but he knew the boy wasn’t going to try to escape. He seemed frozen in place. Up close, Tweek realized he was about a head shorter than Clyde, but it didn’t stop him from angrily saying, “Stay away from my Craig! He’s my boyfriend, not yours, so keep your dirty hands away from him.” 

Clyde just stared at him, flabbergasted, for a moment, then laughed awkwardly, spitting out a confused, “What?” 

“Don’t fucking pretend it’s not obvious!” Tweek said, pressing him more firmly against the tree. “Get your own man,” he breathed out, letting go of Clyde and watching him return slowly to his friends, who were utterly speechless at Tweek’s ferocity.

As his anger dissipated, he realized there were snowflakes in his eyelashes. Actually, there were snowflakes all over him, stuck to his sweater, probably coating his hair, and he was ankle-deep in snow, his toes a little wet from the snow that had melted through his sneakers. He caught his breath and turned to Craig, who was standing there, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Now that the only light available to them was that of the street lamps, Tweek couldn’t see him very well, but he knew that he was smirking. 

“Oh, shut up,” Tweek grumbled at him. “I just got sick of him being all over you—” 

He was cut off by Craig walking up to him, backing him up gently until his back bumped into the tree he had just used in a much different context, and pressing their lips together. Craig was warm, and Tweek wrapped his arms around his neck, pulling him closer and kissing him back. With Craig’s arms wrapped around his waist, his body so close, Tweek forgot all about why he had been angry at Clyde. Tweek pulled on the flaps of Craig’s hat, keeping him close, and kissed him more deeply, loving the way he felt his heart patter at the taste of Craig. 

They finally broke apart after a few minutes, and Craig rested his forehead on Tweek’s. “You know, as hot as that was, that I’m not into Clyde, right?” he told him reassuringly.

Tweek glanced down at his boyfriend’s lips again and gave him a quick peck. “It’s hard to-to tell, sometimes,” Tweek shivered. His teeth were chattering now that he wasn’t thinking about beating up Clyde or putting his tongue in Craig’s mouth. 

“Oh, shit, let’s get you home. Wanna stay at mine?” Craig asked, noticing immediately. At Tweek’s nod of the head, he picked him up bridal style, despite a few quiet protests that dissolved into giggles, and carried him all the way to his own doorstep. When they walked in, Tweek shuddered again, casting the majority of the snowflakes he was wearing upon the floor, and watched Craig as he took off his combat boots. He’d had them for a while, always insisting on wearing them as a form of preemptive self-defense, but also because they made him seem even taller. Tweek simply kicked off his own sneakers and looked at them, wet and floppy on the floor. He realized he needed to go shopping for new shoes soon.

As he was about to open his mouth and invited Craig to go with him on the occasion that he did go shoe shopping, he found himself being picked up by Craig. Smiling, he wrapped his legs around his boyfriend and let him carry him upstairs, nudge open his bedroom door, and flop Tweek onto his bed. The puffballs from Craig’s hat brushed against his neck as Craig leaned over him and kissed him again and again and again. He only pulled away when he went to unbutton the jacket under which he was apparently unclothed, making Tweek’s eyes widen and his heartbeat speed up immeasurably. 

“Oh, calm down, you perv,” Craig snorted, still straddling Tweek at the waist as he took off his jacket and threw it on the floor. “It’s mostly because the snow melted and made it cold and soggy,” he explained. “But also because I was hoping you might do the same, then cuddle me under some blankets.”

Huffing a little bit, Tweek pulled off his sweater and dropped it on the floor beside Craig’s jacket, then pulled him back down into another kiss before realizing just how fucking cold he was. His entire torso was slightly damp from the melted snow, and though some of the moisture had sunk into the comforter on Craig’s bed, he felt much warmer when he climbed under the blanket beside his boyfriend. He wrapped his arms around Craig, dragging his fingertips gently over his back, basking in the warmth of their embrace. When Craig finally took off his hat and kissed Tweek atop the head, mumbling quietly, “I  _am_  your Craig,” Tweek once again realized he was completely, unequivocally head over heels for Craig. He pressed himself closer to his boy, forgetting the way he felt about Clyde, forgetting the idea of Craig dying from the cold, and let himself drift into a peaceful slumber aside his boyfriend. 


	8. CHAPTER VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KENNY: “He became everything I want to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okat sorry if yall dont particularly care to hear much about their plans for the future but i think kenny is too frequently characterized as a deadbeat for his use of drugs and sexuality in the show so i wanted to point out taht he is very good
> 
> anyway tell me what you think about this! i would love some feedback bc i love writing about kenny lol and he and butters are Vert Good Together

_BUTTERS_

Climbing out of his window in the earlier part of the night and climbing back in before dawn became the norm for Butters. Usually he wouldn’t do it on school nights, but this time was an exception. There was no way for him to contact Kenny except when they were in class, so while sitting in their Calc I class, Butters lodged a piece of paper in the hood of Kenny’s coat. 

Kenny turned around, breaking his gaze from his homework for a split second to make eye contact with Butters, and took the paper out of his hood, on which Butters had scrawled out, “Eight tonight? Wherever.” 

With his eyebrows raised and a slightly lopsided smile, Kenny scribbled onto the paper a response. It took him a bit longer than Butters expected, so when he handed him the paper, folded neatly into a rectangle, Butters opened it curiously. In it was a drawing of two hands with their fingers intertwined and a “yes” written in Kenny’s lovely cursive script. It made Butters smile. He wasn’t sure what was up with the hand holding, but he definitely wasn’t against it. 

They walked out of class together and nodded their heads at each other before heading in opposite directions; Butters had fewer classes than Kenny, so he made his way home, reluctant to face his parents as always. When he arrived at his doorstep, he took a deep breath and pushed the door open. His parents were in the kitchen, so Butters said, “H-Hey Mom and Dad, I’m home!” 

“Butters! Come help us make dinner!” his dad shouted from the kitchen, completely disregarding his son’s greeting. Butters sighed.

“Gee whiz, Dad, I’ve got a lot of homework to do!” he lied and ran up the stairs to his room, shutting the door hurriedly. At that point, he looked at the clock on the wall in his room, disappointed when he saw that it was only four. He had four hours to kill until he and Kenny left together again.

Again he found himself facing the mirror, practicing his sign language. He had one book that he kept hidden from his parents underneath his dresser that was a really good comprehensive dictionary, and he pulled it out and started learning new signs. He’d gotten to the point where he knew everything he needed for general conversation, so he focused on the more advanced things like telling stories and whatnot. He sat crisscross applesauce on the floor, forming the signs over and over to himself until he felt that he got them right. 

Eventually his hands were tired and his mouth dry, but he didn’t want to go downstairs and grab water because his parents would talk to him, probably yell at him for something irrelevant. He didn’t want another episode where he had to explain to the leader of a communist country why he was in trouble, and he was sure that North Korea was next in line, so he sat and looked at himself in the mirror. 

Butters had never particularly liked his physical appearance, but as the time he spent in his room alone became longer and longer, he began to notice more aspects of his physicality that he didn’t like. His hair was getting a bit long, he noticed, and it fell into his eyes when he didn’t style it, which was always. The cropping on the sides had grown out enough that the hair touched his ears, but he didn’t want to ask his parents to take him to get it cut, so he decided he would trim it soon himself. 

Light blue had always been Butters’ go-to color, and he still wore a long-sleeved light blue t-shirt nearly every day, but when he stared at himself he started noticing how ridiculous he looked in it. He thought his arm flab was a little too prominent, his double chin too easily exposed, his tummy too soft. Upset, he went to his closet and pulled a baggy black sweater over his shirt, so he couldn’t look at himself and pick out his imperfections anymore. 

He looked through his sign language book, in the glossary, and followed its directions to the page he was looking for.

Butters looked at himself in the mirror. “Fat,” he signed to himself, over and over again, making sure he would remember it. He focused on it so intently that he didn’t notice Kenny’s tapping on the window until he tapped more loudly. 

Squeaking nervously at his broken concentration and slightly embarrassed that Kenny saw him Butters went over to the window and eased it open. “You good, Ken?” he asked.

Kenny nodded, looking at him with crinkles by his eyes, presumably from smiling. It was difficult to read his facial expressions since he was wearing a bandanna over his mouth and nose to keep out the cold. “Mine,” he said, and though it was muffled, Butters still understood and followed him down the tree and into the snow, which was up to the middle of his shins. He shivered profusely as he stepped into the footprints Kenny left in the snow, following him all the way to his apartment in that way. Fortunately they didn’t live too far apart anymore now that he’d moved, but the walk was still tiring from the bone-chilling cold.

Immediately upon entering his apartment, Kenny took off his shoes and pulled down his hood, gesturing toward Butters’ feet to let him know he could do the same. Butters really liked Kenny’s apartment, which was bare of furniture except for a couple of chairs in the front room and a full size mattress that sat on the floor in the bedroom. He thought it was clean, and calming, he guessed because it smelled like Kenny; he followed him into his room and held back a happy gasp when he saw a new addition to Kenny’s household in the corner.

Sitting on the floor was a little fishbowl with a singular sunset fire wag platy in it— Butters’ absolute favorite fish ever. “Kenny?” he grinned, biting his bottom lip, and nodded toward the fish. Kenny’s response was a quick head nod, and Butters scrambled over to look at the fish. He laid on his stomach and stared at the fish at his eye level. “Can I feed ‘im, Ken?” 

“Go ahead,” Kenny told him warmly after letting the bandanna he was wearing fall to his collarbone. The fish food sat right by the fish bowl, and Butters was absolutely fascinated and wholly entertained by watching the fish eat.

“What’s his name?” Butters smiled, not even looking back to see if Kenny was still there. 

“Doesn’t have one,” he heard Kenny say from the kitchen. “You give him one.” 

“Hmm,” Butters thought about it for a minute. “Ah! I got it! How about Kenny!”

He heard a muffled laugh beside him and dully registered that Kenny had sat down next to him. “Yeah? Why would you name my fish after me?”

“Because he’s my favorite kind of fish! And you’re my favorite too, Kenny! You’re my best friend,” he sat up and leaned against the wall. It took him a second to notice that Kenny was holding a tubular glass with water in it and a tupperware container beside it with an assortment of bags in it. “Uh,” he said, not sure how to ask what was going on.

“It’s a bong,” Kenny explained, putting some weed in the little bowl that was stuck in it. “Watch,” he said, and lit the weed on fire and inhaling the smoke that came up through the tube part of the bong. He held his breath in for a second and blew the smoke gently into Butters’ face, watching him squint for a second before giggling a bit. 

Butters had gotten used to the smell of weed and even came to enjoy it, mostly because he associated the smell with the comfort of Kenny’s presence. Or maybe it was the absence of his parents’ presence that made it appealing to him. Either way, he thought it was alright even though he never smoked any himself. 

They sat crisscross applesauce facing each other, and Butters thought to himself that he much preferred looking at Kenny to looking at himself in the mirror. Most of the time when they hung out, Kenny used a blunt instead of a bong to smoke, so watching him smoke from the bong was a new experience for Butters. He knew most people wouldn’t find it entertaining, but he quite liked watching Kenny’s walls fall down while he smoked. It was like he unwound the more he smoked. Mr. Mackey had always told them drugs were bad, but Butters couldn’t help but think that they couldn’t be horrible in their entirety if Kenny opened up more when he did them. 

“Wait, we need music,” Kenny said while smiling broadly. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and clicked on it a few times, turning on some music with heavy bass that Butters would totally jam to if he wasn’t focused on Kenny. “Want some?” Kenny asked, raising his eyebrows at Butters and holding the bong toward him.

Butters hesitated, then thought about what he had to face when he got home, thought about how sweet Kenny became when he smoked, and decided a few hits wouldn’t hurt him. He shrugged and smiled at the expression of surprise that Kenny wore at his response but bit his lip when Kenny scooted closer to him so that their knees were pressed together. He held the bong to Butters’ mouth and told him, “Breathe in when I light it up.” And he lit it up, watching Butters inhale shakily. 

He lifted his head and blew the smoke out to the side away from the fish. The smoke clouded up in front of him for a second before falling away, and he looked at Kenny nervously. Kenny smiled at him and nodded slowly while moving to light the bong again, and again Butters inhaled deeply and blew the smoke to the side. At that moment it hit him, and he grinned at Kenny dumbly. 

“Ah, yeah, there you go,” Kenny laughed, and it wasn’t until then that Butters realized how lovely that sound was. Kenny’s voice was deep and smooth, and it soothed him no matter what he was saying. He offered Butters another hit, watching him inhale for the third time like it was second nature to him, and this time Butters blew the smoke right into Kenny’s face. It wasn’t aggressive or hostile in nature; in fact, it teetered dangerously close to being flirtatious. “Careful there, Leopold. Do you mind if call you that? Leo…” 

“Uh, um, sure, Ken,” Butters nodded his head slowly and watched the way Kenny’s mouth moved slowly when he spoke, or maybe he was just high enough that he was becoming more sensitive to everything around him. Everything around him that mattered, anyway, which at this point was solely Kenny.

His ears felt warm. Actually, his everything felt warm. His clothes almost tickled against his skin, and his chest had that feeling you get when you’re excited about something but nervous at the same time. He watched as Kenny took off his coat and marveled at the way he moved. It probably wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but Butters found himself strangely fixated on the way Kenny undressed himself. And while he watched Kenny, he heard the beat of the music even more thoroughly and then noticed the lyrics.

 _Yeah, I know, know I’m scared of commitment_  
_But tell me who isn’t, tell me who isn’t_  
_I know, it’s easier being alone_  
_But when you come over again_  
_I’m not gonna pretend I want anyone else_  
_‘cause I don’t_  
_I’m tired of being alone_

“Who’s it about?” Butters inquired. He noticed that his nervous tics had mostly disappeared and that he could speak almost normally. Kenny looked confused for a moment, in the midst of taking another hit, and then seemed to understand.

“You really wanna know, Leo?” he asked, biting his lip in a way that made Butters’ face heat up and his heart rate shoot through the roof. Suddenly he felt much warmer in a pleasant way, and he watched Kenny put the bong to the side in a state of almost absence. Kenny leaned forward, putting his face unnecessarily close to Butters’, and said quietly, “It’s about you.”

Butters found himself short of breath, both because of Kenny’s proximity and what he’d just said. It came crashing down on him in a second, all of it, the realization that the way he felt for Kenny was a lot more than platonic and definitely not a result of Kenny being his savior from his parents. No, he suddenly realized that there was much more to his feelings for the boy than he originally thought, and it wasn’t something he’d ever considered before. Even when he was a pimp in the fourth grade, he’d not developed feelings for anyone he pimped. They were just his bitches. But he found himself strangely endeared by Kenny, by his smile, his laugh, his aloofness and the way he tore his walls down, albeit through drugs, every time they hung out. God, he found himself breathing heavily at how close they were at the moment, and the beat of the music fell in tune with his heart: heavy and all-consuming.

He put his hand on Kenny’s jaw and pulled his face in to press their lips together for a second, feeling the skip of his heart, and then let go. Kenny smirked and glanced back down at Butters’ lips as if asking for permission, and then they were kissing again, one of Kenny’s hands on Butters’ knee and the other on his jaw to keep him close. They kissed innocently for a moment, and Butters didn’t know when it turned into a wet, hot kiss, but he was enjoying it so much, the ringing in his ears getting louder and the beat of his heart getting harder, that when Kenny pulled away and sat back down, Butters let out a little whine. 

“I didn’t think you had that in you,” Kenny smiled at him, a shit-eating grin, and lit up again. He let Butters take another hit and then put his hand back on Butters’ knee. “You done that before?” he asked, and at the shake of Butters’ head and the still-shaky breathing, he tilted his head a little bit. “Then I won’t push it.”

Butters didn’t respond, instead admiring the way the light from the moon spilled in through the blinds of the window to fall upon Kenny’s face, illuminating beautifully the lines of his mouth, showing the freckles dashed over his nose and the deep brown of his eyes framed by thick, dark eyelashes. “I… Ken? You, you look real good,” Butters stuttered out dumbly. 

“Thanks, babe,” Kenny poked his tongue out of his mouth and bit it while smiling. It was something he did sometimes when his was high, and Butters finally fully appreciated it. “You know,” he began, holding a hand out to Butters and standing up with him, “I’ve always thought you’re lovely.”

They laid down on the mattress facing each other, Kenny lacing his fingers with Butters’. “Wh-Why did you decide to come see me, that first night?” Butters asked him, realizing his stammer came back with his freaky heartbeat. 

“Because we’re seniors, Leo, and I have my own place.”

At that, Butters felt himself blush because his mind immediately jumped to the sexual implications of what Kenny said. “Hey!” Kenny laughed loudly, grinning when he realized what Butters was thinking. “I’m not against the idea,” he told him, moving his hand to graze over Butters’ waist before returning to holding hands with him. “I just meant, we can hang out, you know? I feel like we understand each other. Neither of our parents are the best, and neither of us has particularly close friends. And you’re so cute.”

Butters wasn’t sure what to say, so he quietened. They laid there looking into each others’ eyes for a bit, holding hands and enjoying the music and the company. Kenny’s music taste was truly elegant, Butters thought, though he never listened to music much since he didn’t have a phone. But the more he listened, the more he realized how much this music must mean to him.

 _And I remember swinging high on the playground_  
_Side by side on the slide, only way down_  
_And I can see us running 'round the house_  
_You’d be like chasing me until my breath ran outta my mind_  
_Now I’m hearing deadbeat lies_  
_Like how everything I dream about will never be mine_  
_And how everything I’m reaching for, it don’t pay a dime_

“What do you want to do after high school?” Butters asked suddenly, sitting up and propping himself up on one arm. 

Kenny blinked, smiling up at him, and rolled onto his back. “I’ve actually gotten my acceptance letter to college already,” he informed Butters. “I’m studying, well…” In a rare display of insecurity, Kenny ran a hand through his own hair, resting his hand at the nape of his neck before continuing. “Neurosurgery. I wanna be a neurosurgeon, you know? Like Ben Carson.”

Butters, though high, knew that Kenny would never tell him this, tell him who was his inspiration, if he was sober. He pushed further. “What d’you mean? He sucks at politics. He said so himself that he wasn’t ready—”

“That’s not what I meant!” Kenny exclaimed, a passion in his voice as he sat up straight and stared at Butters intently. “He- He started with nothing. He brought himself up from the ashes of a broken, impoverished family. He became…” He trailed off, looking down at his hands for a moment. “He became everything I want to be,” he mumbled.   

Rendered speechless, Butters looked at Kenny with a gentle smile and place a hand atop the other boy’s. “I think that’s fucking awesome, Ken.”

“Yeah?” Kenny looked up at him, looking into Butters’ eyes with a sort of intensity that Butters had never seen Kenny show before. Then he grabbed Butters’ face in both hands, kissed him hard, and after he pulled away, he said, “Well, I think you’re fucking awesome.”

And in that moment Butters knew that Kenny had burrowed his way into his heart and wasn’t going to be leaving soon.


	9. CHAPTER VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> STAN: He was pleasantly buzzed. His ears were slightly warm, his thoughts a little bit stalled, but by no means was he drunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry why do i do this 
> 
> thank you for your comments i love you all omgggg
> 
> take this style dump or something tbh idk what im doing but i wanted to write something with some good good you know

_STAN_

Halloween rolled around, bringing more bitter cold and excitement for the legendary party Bebe always threw on the night. Usually Stan wouldn’t plan to go, wouldn’t want to subject himself to the misery he knew would accompany a large-scale social event, but Kyle had asked him to go in matching costumes, and his heart lurched, and he gave in. 

At the time, they sat in the floor of Stan’s house, in his room, working silently on their own homework and listening to soft music in the background, this time Stan’s choice.

As the weeks flew by and days grew shorter, Stan found himself in an increasingly more and more compromosing positon. The fact of the matter was that everyone around him was applying for college. Kyle and Kenny had already finished their applications, though to where, Stan wasn’t sure. He knew Craig was going to University at Boulder, and Token was planning to go to a local college to keep costs down. Why he cared Stan wasn’t sure, since Token’s family was one of the richest in the town, but he decided not to question it. 

“Kyle?” Stan piped up, looking at the boy thoughtfully. “Like, I, I dunno where to apply. For college, I mean. I don’t even know what I want to do.”

“Hmm,” Kyle tapped his pencil on his paper repetetively before answering, as if it helped him to think better. “Well, what do you like? Music, yeah, but what else?”

 _You_ , is what Stan thought, but Kyle Studies wasn’t a thing at most colleges. “I dunno. I guess… Classwise, I really like French.”

“Then study French. Problem solved,” Kyle told him dismissively, as if that was all he had to worry about. But what was really on Stan’s mind was whether he’d be able to stay near Kyle, since the boy wanted to be a doctor. Their majors would be different, so would they be able to spend time together? Would they even be at the same school? Hell, the same state?

Kyle glanced back up at Stan when he noticed his silence, then saw that Stan was clearly still concerned. “C’mon,” Kyle told him and sat up against the bed, patting the floor next to his side in an invitation. He pulled out his phone and swiped to open it. “We’ll check to see which colleges offer good French programs. You got this, Stan. Don’t doubt your ability.”

“It’s not my ability that I doubt,” Stan said pointedly, but he still sat next to Kyle. 

“Then what’s up? I can tell something’s bothering you,” Kyle’s expression and tone were soft. Stan loved that about him: he always knew when he was upset and knew just what to say and how to help. 

He looked into Kyle’s eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “Nothing. So, schools with good French programs?” he nodded toward Kyle’s phone, which he was still holding. 

“We’ll look it up,” Kyle smiled at him and looked it up for him, then scrolled down for a few seconds before continuing. “Stan, you’ve got plenty of options. I can help you finish your application if you want, too.” 

They sat there for a second, and Kyle clicked the screen of his phone off. “So, uh, when is Bebe’s party?” Stan said, to change the subject. 

Kyle checked his phone for the time. “Oh. Soon enough that we should get ready. You still sure you wanna go with me?”

Stan nodded his head. “I’m good. You wanna get ready here?”

When Kyle answered affirmatively to his question, Stan’s heart jumped. They were going as Toolshed and Human Kite as an ode to their past — it was their last year all together, and they thought the irony of going to their last (though they’d never actually gone together, or gone at all, for that matter) party in the costumes they wore as children was more than relevant. 

Kyle reached for his overnight bag, where he had presumably packed the clothing and accessories necessary for making himself into a human kite. Stan went to his closet to find some plain blue jeans and a white t-shirt. He pulled his shirt over his head and grabbed his t-shirt of choice along with the jeans he was planning to wear and threw them onto his bed. 

“Um, dude, what are you doing?” Kyle asked from beside the bed, where his bag was. Stan looked at him and noticed that he was blushing a little bit, obviously referencing Stan undressing in front of him, he only shrugged in response, pulling his pants down before redressing himself. “Are you done yet?” 

Stan looked at Kyle and realized that he had turned around so that he wasn’t looking at Stan while he changed. He rolled his eyes. Kyle had always been really shy about it when he changed in front of him, but Stan found it really endearing. “I’m done, Kyle. I’m gonna go grab a tool belt and an electric drill, so don’t worry about leaving to change. I’ll knock before I come in.” he started out the door but noticed that Kyle hadn’t responded, so, in the doorway, he turned around and saw Kyle still standing there staring at his feet. “Hey. You good?” 

Kyle cleared his throat and stuttered out a “yeah,” which was enough for Stan, so he made his way into the basement, where he dug out the things he needed to complete his Toolshed look. Instead of wearing his hat, he went to the bathroom and combed his hair a bit, but then he decided he didn’t like it looking so neat, so he ran his hand through it and left it alone. 

He knocked on the door to his room and didn’t receive a response, so he assumed that Kyle was done and walked in. What he found was Kyle sitting on his bed, tears in his eyes, biting his lip. 

“Kyle? What… What’s—” he began to ask him what was wrong, but he noticed Kyle was smiling, and he couldn’t help but think how lovely he looked in blue.

“I, I was done and I checked my email, and I found out I got accepted. At college, I mean,” he bit back a smile and stood up. Without a second thought, Stan grabbed him and pulled him into a close hug. “I didn’t expect a response so quickly! Stan, I, wow! I don’t even…”

“We’ll have to do something to celebrate. You want to? Like, I dunno, go see that movie you’ve mentioned, or something.”

“Yes,” Kyle affirmed, leaning out of the hug to look at Stan. He dragged his hand down Stan’s arm and grabbed his hand briefly before saying, “It’s time to go. I’m too lazy to assemble a kite, so this blue outfit and a white hoodie will have to do.” 

“You do have a mini kite hanging off of your shirt, to be fair. How long did it take you to make that?” Stan laughed warmly and ran his hand through his hair again, not used to it being exposed, and grabbed his keys off of his nightstand. “Ready?”

Kyle nodded, and they were on their way to Bebe’s for the last Halloween party of their normal life.

* * *

When they arrived, however, they realized they had made a dire mistake; it wasn’t a costume party. It was a get-drunk party, and though Stan was definitely more than okay with the alcohol, he knew it bothered Kyle when he drank, so he resolved not to do so. Especially since he’d just heard the big news, he wanted to make this night perfect for him. 

They caused a lot of laughter when they walked in dressed as a human kite and a toolshed, but Stan really didn’t care. Everyone came into the house all at once, flocking to the kitchen to grab any form of alcohol available, while Stan and Kyle sat next to each other on the couch in the front room, facing the TV that was playing some stupid soap opera. 

“Hey! Welcome to the party, Stan!” Bebe said, sitting down uncomfortably close next to him. She wore a tight shirt and a short skirt with bright, flattering makeup, but Stan couldn’t find it in himself to think about the way she looked. She tended to hit on him a lot, but he’d never expressed an interest, so he wasn’t sure why she kept trying.

“Thanks. What’s even up, anyway? Like, what do we do?” Stan asked, moving away from her subtly and closer to Kyle. Kyle coughed awkwardly when he pressed their thighs together in an attempt to escape Bebe.

“Hmm… Well, you can get drunk! Or you can smoke, if you want! We also have some food and, um, guest rooms,” she looked at him and batted her eyelashes suggestively, as if hinting that she would like to use a guest room with him. “For anyone special that you happen to find. But in a bit we’ll be playing truth or dare, like that one time in elementary school, and probably crashing.”

To Stan, this sounded ridiculous. Really, where was the amusement to be found in these activities? But he still sat on the couch in his childhood superhero persona beside his best friend. He nodded his head silently in response to Bebe, hoping to hint to her that he wanted her to leave, and though she didn’t seem to take that hint, she got up to hug Wendy affectionately when she walked in. 

Next in was Cartman, who looked just as fat and stupid as ever, but he immediately followed Wendy wherever she went. Stan thought it was kind of sweet that Cartman finally found someone he actually liked, but he wasn’t sure of Wendy’s feelings, or if they were even there. 

“This is… Kind of lame,” Kyle said. “And I kind of want to drink a little.”

Stan choked. “What? Why? I thought you hated alcohol.”

“Nah. Wanna drink a bit with me?” Kyle asked him, standing up and offering a hand to him. 

“Eh, I might have a drink, but not much,” Stan took his hand and followed him to Bebe’s kitchen, where there were multiple types of alcohol set out on the counter. Everything from beer to vodka to Jack Daniels sat on display on the island counter in the middle of the room, and though people were filtering out of the room at an increasing rate, there was still a substantial number of people in there.

“Um, I’m just gonna, I dunno, take a couple of shots,” Kyle decided, pushing through the group of people standing by the door and choosing a shots cup from the counter. He poured a cup of Jack Daniels and threw it back with surprising ease, making the people around cheer. 

“Woo! Go Kyle!” Kenny shouted from across the island counter, with an arm wrapped around Butters, who was clearly intoxicated. 

“Thanks,” Kyle raised his eyebrows at Kenny and pouring another shot. He downed that one easily too, and Stan took a moment to wonder if he’d done this before, but he couldn’t think of an instance in whiich he would have the opportunity. “Want one?” Kyle looked at Stan, who nodded, so he poured him a shot too, watching as Stan drank it in one gulp. 

“Shit, how much alcohol is in that?” Stan asked, his voice a bit raspy from the shot, and his throat, chest, and mouth burning in a pleasant way. 

“It’s a 100 proof,” came Token’s reply. He obviously had no clue that Bebe always hit on Stan because he was there hugging her from behind in the kitchen. Kyle and Stan exchanged a look, Kyle taking one more shot, and then left to return to their seats on the couch. 

Craig and Tweek had taken over their spot. It seemed that their favorite pastime was inconveniencing  anyone who wanted to use the damn couch, so Stan looked at the recliner and shrugged, sitting on it and patting his thighs to tell Kyle to sit on his lap. 

“Oh,” Kyle responded, blushing, but Stan wasn’t sure if it was because the alcohol was beginning to hit him or not. He sat on the arm of the recliner instead, wrapping an arm around Stan’s shoulders. 

They sat there chatting for a few minutes, Stan watching with an affectionate smile as his friend succumbed to the alcohol slowly. Kyle seemed to be a relatively sensical drunk, though he laughed a bit more than usual. 

“Hey guys!” Bebe shouted from the front room. “C’mon, we’re playing truth or dare! Bring your shots!”

Everyone crowded into the front room, taking seats on the floor since the only furniture available was occupied by an extremely gay couple and two friends who had had a little to drink. “Okay, okay, so, this game is in memory of our childhoods together,” Bebe began. “Stan and Kyle took that to a completely new level, but, well, not all of us are fucking nerds, so,” she raised her glass. “To our futures!”

All of the kids threw their shots back, Jimmy and Clyde sitting at the foot of the recliner where Kyle and Stan were seated. “Th-Th-This is c-c-cool as hell!” Jimmy laughed, leaning in to face Bebe on the other side of the circle that had formed. And although Stan decided not to participate, and Kyle was a little bit too tipsy to care, they still enjoyed watching their childhood friends take jabs at each other and do stupid things.

“Oh my god,” Red said at one point, snorting with laughter. “Remember when Kyle got in huge trouble for saying Caitlyn Jenner wasn’t a hero? That fucking gets me every time.”

“That’s not what I said!” Kyle heard his name and turned to Red with a surprisingly aggressive tone. Red’s eyes widened; she was obviously taken aback by Kyle’s response. “I said she’s not a hero to  _me_ , and there’s nothing wrong with that! Even if I said she’s not a hero at all, I’m allowed to believe what I think about her!”

“Our point is that you were a transphobe even in elementary school,” Craig said, probably because he was the only one with the balls to respond to a pissed off Kyle. His nasal tone and apathetic attitutde only seemed to piss of Kyle more.

“That’s the point! It’s not transphobic! I think that, as a human being, she is not a hero! Coming out is something that thousands of people way younger than her deal with every day…” Kyle kept talking, setting everyone straight on why it was ridiculous for him to be punished as a child for expressing his opinion. The more he talked, the less Stan paid attention to his words and the more he paid attention to him. He’d taken off his jacket and thrown it who-knows-where. His ears were a flaming red, his face flushed, and his entire manner animated from his anger.

Eventually he finished his lecture, and everyone in the room exchanged glances, some amused, some intimidated, and some straight up just shocked. No one had ever seen a tipsy Kyle. Well, he was teetering dangerously close to drunkenness, but nonetheless Stan found it enticing to see his friend like this. Usually he was more reserved, but he just all-out lectured the entire group of partygoers. They sat quietly for a moment, trying to process what he’d said, but soon completely forgot about it and continued their game. 

After a while, it seemed that Kyle calmed down a little bit. “I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna go grab a thing,” he told Stan, hopping off of the arm of the recliner and heading to the kitchen. Stan wasn’t sure if that meant more alcohol or food or what, but it was funny to hear Kyle’s speech. It wasn’t slurred because Kyle wasn’t full-on wasted, but the words all kind of ran together, so it was like he said “i’mgonnagograbathing,” which made Stan smile brightly.

He was pleasantly buzzed. His ears were slightly warm, his thoughts a little bit stalled, but by no means was he drunk. 

“Kyle!” he heard Clyde say, and looked down to see that Clyde had turned around to seek Kyle. “Dude, where’s your man?” 

Stan blinked. “My man?” 

“Yeah? Kyle? What, you’re not together?” Clyde cocked his head a little bit, looking mildly confused and also very high. 

“Uh,” Stan blanked in that moment. “No. We aren’t. Should we be? I’m confused.”

“Oh,” was Clyde’s response, and it left Stan hanging and thinking more deeply about his feelings for Kyle than he ever had. 

Jimmy turned to look at him. “Y-Y-You’re not w-with Kyle? B-B-But he a-ador-adores you,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“What are you guys talking about?” Stan demanded to know, because when he considered it, he and Kyle were awfully close. 

“Dude, Kyle’s… Oh, nevermind,” Clyde gave up and returned to the game, having completely forgotten whatever it was that had initially sparked his interest in Kyle’s presence. 

Stan sat completely rigid for a moment, his heart beating out of his chest, and his body feeling warm, but likely not because of the alcohol. It hadn’t been much, after all. 

He made a decision in a few seconds. He stood up from the recliner, attracting the attention of both Jimmy and Clyde as well as that of Wendy, who was sitting to Clyde’s side, and walked into the kitchen. 

There stood Kyle, rummaging through the cabinets clumsily to find a cup, presumably for water. “Kyle,” Stan said, his chest burning and his throat tight when Kyle turned around and saw him.

Without hesitation, Stan walked up to his best friend, pushed him against the kitchen counter, grabbed his jaw, and kissed him full on the mouth. He felt the heat of Kyle’s body through his thin shirt and wanted more, suddenly realizing how badly he’d wanted this boy. He’d never thought about it, never considered why he was so attached to Kyle, never wondered why he always let his gaze linger on Kyle instead of the beautiful girls in his classes, but it made sense now. 

Kyle gasped against his mouth, not fighting against him, but instead leaning his weight against the counter and taking a moment to process what was happening. Stan let his fingers trail up under the hem of Kyle’s shirt, and in contrast with Kyle’s skin, his fingers were cold, which must have thrown Kyle into action, because in a second Kyle’s fingers were dug into Stan’s hair, and he kissed him back with a fervor that couldn’t be wholly attributed to his mild lack of sobreity. 

“Up,” Stan mumbled against Kyle’s mouth, and Kyle understood immediately to hop on the counter, so Stan wedged himself between his thighs and kissed him more deeply, tasting the Jack Daniels on his tongue, running one hand up Kyle’s thigh and keeping the other tangled in his hair. He’d never fully appreciated how lovely Kyle’s hair was; it was soft and tightly curled, long enough that it fell to his jawline, and gave Stan a perfect way to keep Kyle close enough to mandhandle him.

The more they kissed, the more Stan realized how much he wanted it, and he felt himself growing harder and harder at the touch of Kyle, and all he could think was Kyle, Kyle, Kyle, how he wanted so much more from him, wanted to give him everything in the world. He broke the kiss to nibble at Kyle’s jaw and down his neck, taking a bite and licking the skin to leave a sheen of saliva over the place he’d bitten, making sure everyone would know that Kyle was  _his_. He knew they would get hell for this, knew it would be hell to cover up, but he found himself simply not giving a shit. 

Kyle’s breaths came in short gasps, and he maintained his grip on Stan’s hair, moaning softly with each bite that Stan took of his neck. He let out a loud moan when Stan squeezed his thigh, and Stan pulled away, biting his own lip before leaning back in, but a loud “what the fuck?” from the doorway made him turn around, a little surprised.

Of all the people to have walked in on them, Cartman stood in the doorway, pointing at them with his mouth agape. "I, HAHA,” he started cracking up. “Hey, Wendy! Your ex boyfriend puts it in Kyle’s ass!”

“Not yet, I don’t,” Stan mumbled under his breath, causing Kyle to cough in surprise, wide-eyed, and still red from their heated makeout session.

No response came from the front room. It could have been because no one heard, but it was probably because no one cared. And Stan found himself wanting to tell Cartman to leave, flip him off, and go back to kissing his best friend until their lips were raw. Kyle took care of that for him, though, and said, “Fuck off, fatass,” before grabbing handfuls of Stan’s shirt and kissing him again. 

“Sick, y’all are fuckin’ homos,” Cartman grumbled, but he didn’t leave. He just walked in and started going through the cabinets, ignoring what was happening next to him.

Kyle moved so that he was pressing Stan against the kithcen counter, and Stan let out a quiet gasp when he dragged his fingers up his biceps, so sensitive to his touch that he couldn’t help it. 

“Hey! Stop it!” Cartman shouted, and they broke apart for a second. “I need into that cabinet,” he said, and shoved them away from the kitchen counter.

They exchanged glances, breathing heavily, trying to ignore that Cartman was there cockblocking. For the first time, Stan scanned Kyle up and down, realizing how much he loved the boy, and definitely not missing the obvious bulge in his pants. 

They stood there, looking at each other, even after Cartman walked out because, hell, what were they going to do? They didn’t know what to say, what to think, or how they would feel when they woke up the next morning, in the quiet of the newly risen sun, next to each other. 

Well, Stan did. He knew exactly how he would feel when he woke up. He just didn’t know how he was going to cross the line between friendship and romantic relationship with his best friend. Because even though they were clearly into each other in the sensual way, Stan knew he wanted something more.


	10. CHAPTER IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TWEEK: He sighed, looked up at the ceiling, then took back the tequila to drink more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY ALL   
> it's been a while, lol, i went to china, graduated, blah blah blah, but i'm back now!
> 
> not too much happens in this chapter, but it's creek so it's ok right?  
> (not at all)
> 
> i hope you guys enjoy this shitty chapter

_TWEEK_

Ignoring whatever bullshit Cartman made up for their attention, the friends continued their game of truth or dare. Tweek lay in front of Craig on the couch, the little spoon, perfectly comfortable and warm in his boyfriend’s arms, not worried in the slightest when he felt himself start to doze off. His almost-dreams were strange in nature, distorted, nonsensical in terms of reasoning, but scary enough that Tweek’s nervous twitch was present even in his rest. 

The dreams grew more and more vivid, threats of his loved ones leaving him creeping up on him with no warning; Tweek had always dreamed in color, always with almost painful attention to detail. 

He started awake, gasping in a breath of air as he sat up, resting a hand on his chest to slow his heartbeat. Craig immediately sat up too, letting a hand drop to Tweek’s waist, looking at him with a concerned expression. “Honey, are you okay?”

Unable to speak, Tweek shrugged sheepishly. He realized he’d disturbed the game of truth or dare and that everyone was staring at him, so he mumbled out an excuse of needing to go to the bathroom and stood up off the couch.

Instead of heading for the bathroom, though, Tweek made his way to the kitchen, where Stan and Kyle were nowhere to be found. It didn’t surprise him in the least that Cartman had been lying about the two: most of what the pudgy boy said was simply to draw attention to himself for one reason or another.

“Tweek?” Craig asked quietly, watching him sit on the island in the middle of the kitchen. “What happened?”

“Just, ah! A bad dream.” He looked at Craig and smiled with tired eyes, knowing it couldn’t be easy for him to deal with Tweek’s anxiety. “Wh-Where’s the, ah! Where’s the liquor?” 

Wordlessly, Craig rummaged through the cabinets in the kitchen until he found the remaining bottles of liquor. “You sure you want to do this, sweetie? Have you ever drank before?”

Tweek shrugged and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “No, but so what?” and Craig seemed to accept that as an answer because he placed three liquor bottles on the counter next to Tweek and leaned on it.

“Which kind? We’ve got vodka, whiskey, and tequila.” 

“Mmmm,” Tweek twitched and reached for the one that was mostly full, opened the cap, and took a long swig of it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, babe, that’s tequila! Go easy,” Craig told him, putting an arm to Tweek’s right side and using his other one to hold the tequila bottle away from him. 

Craig smelled really nice, like he always did. When he was so close, Tweek could see more clearly the depth of brown of Craig’s eyes and the small freckles that dotted his nose. 

“Tequila makes people aggressive,” Craig explained, leaning away to take a sip of the drink himself. “I just want you to be aware of what you’re getting yourself into.”

A loud cheer came from the front room, and Tweek would have cared about why if he had ever given a singular fuck about what those ditzes were doing. He sighed, looked up at the ceiling, then took back the tequila to drink more. The burn from the liquor warmed his throat, made his mouth feel hot, and he really liked it, so he kept drinking.

“Tweek?” Craig had moved to lean on the counter across from the island where Tweek sat, and he drank an amber-colored liquor which Tweek assumed was the leftovers of the whiskey. “Are you okay? Like, seriously. You’re worrying me.”

Tweek took another gulp of the tequila and put it to the side for a moment before taking in a deep breath and letting out a loud sigh. “I… I, well, I don’t know.” He pressed his lips together, nervous for no real reason. After taking another drink, he continued: “Sometimes my dreams get to me.”

Craig came back to stand in front of his boyfriend, a hand on either side of him, and kissed him on the forehead. “Well, I’m always here to help you in any way I can.”

Biting his lip, Tweek smiled at Craig; only he could ever make him respond positively when he was in an anxious mood. The tequila seemed to start taking effect, though, because his limbs were starting to feel fuzzy. Both boys sat silently for a few minutes, choking down more of the bitter alcohol, until Craig had emptied the whiskey bottle (not that it was much; it had only been half full when he’d started, but Craig seemed to be feeling it nonetheless). 

On the other hand, Tweek had downed about half of a much larger bottle of tequila. He could feel the heat in his cheeks and the nice, numb feeling in the rest of his body. His heart beat quickly, but in the nice way. It could have been that he was staring at Craig, not taking his eyes off of the boy as he drank even more of the liquor while Craig threw away the whiskey bottle. 

“Craig?” Tweek spoke up, not in his usual, shaky voice, but more confident. 

“Yeah?” Craig turned around, looking his boyfriend up and down before meeting his eyes.

“I love you.” 

Another drink. 

“Alright, honey, I love you too, but I think it’s time to stop drinking for you,” he lunged for the bottle, but Tweek angrily jerked away, making himself fall sideways. Craig caught him with one hand, steadying him and ensuring he didn’t fall off the island.

“Craig!” he said, clearly not very happy, and took another long sip. “I’m fine! See?”

Craig looked at him pensively for a second, biting his lower lip, then said: “Okay. Come with me back to the front room.”

Defiantly furrowing his eyebrows, Tweek attempted to hop off the counter and drink at the same time, inevitably spilling some alcohol on the floor. Both boys stopped and looked at the mess for a second. Craig shrugged and took the bottle, twisting the cap shut, and left it on the counter. The second Craig let go of Tweek’s waist, Tweek teetered dangerously, so Craig simply picked him up bridal style to bring him into the front room. 

Upon seeing the two, Nichole cheered happily. “We’ve been waiting for you guys to come back! It’s your turn, Craig!” 

“Just a second,” he answered her. Tweek glanced around the room as Craig lowered him gently onto the couch, and he noticed that Stan and Kyle still hadn’t come back. Craig wrapped his arms around Tweek to keep him steady as he sat up. “Alright, I’m ready now,” he slurred a little. “Whose turn is it to ask?”

Anger mixed with irritation clawed up Tweek’s throat when he saw that it was Clyde who raised his hand. Tweek wasn’t entirely  _there,_  but he was there enough to notice Clyde whispering to Jimmy and giggling. “Sooo, Craig, what’ll it be for you?”

“Truth, duh,” Craig responded, running his hands over Tweek’s chest affectionately.

For a moment, Clyde stuttered, but his smirk returned when he said, “Whose dick do you think is bigger, mine or Tweek’s?”

Jimmy laughed, punching Clyde in the arm, saying something about how he didn’t expect him to actually ask, but Tweek was seeing red. “Fucking Clyde! What’s your problem? You fucking asshole!”

Craig looked at his boyfriend with eyebrows raised, trying and failing to hide a smile gave him crinkles by his eyes. “Um, well, uh…”

“You don’t have to answer this dick, babe,” Tweek fumed, turning around and looking at him intently. Everyone in the room stared in silence, waiting for Craig to respond, when suddenly Tweek sighed angrily and shook his head, starting toward the door. He opened it, sure to slam on the way out, and escaped into the cold winter air, sitting down on the porch and trying desperately not to cry from anger. 

A few seconds later, Craig was there with him, holding one hand in his pocket and the other outstretched to Tweek. Hesitantly, Tweek took it, and then Craig had pulled him into a tight hug. For a second he tensed, but he was simply too drunk to care about seeming needy in front of his boyfriend. He buried his face in his boyfriend’s chest, and they stood there like that for a few minutes, but Tweek couldn’t shake the thought from his head. 

“Craig?” he asked, looking up at his boyfriend with the fire of his anger visible in his eyes. “Why do you even hang out with him? Why do you… Why do you like him more than me?”

Craig blinked in shock. “Like… Like Clyde more than you?” he laughed, which pissed off Tweek even more, but also left him feeling a bit hurt. He shook his head again and turned to walk away, but Craig grabbed him by the hand and leaned down, kissing him on the lips, lighting Tweek’s heart afire with a feeling completely different from his anger. And then he wrapped his arms around Tweek’s waist, pulling him so that they were flush against each other, and Tweek eagerly reciprocated, running his fingers into his boyfriend’s hair and tugging gently.

Then Craig was backing him up against the wall, ignoring that there was snow on his shoes, ignoring that everyone would be able to tell what had happened, and kissed him more fiercely. Tweek leaned his head back onto the wall and bit his lip a little too hard when Craig kissed from his jaw down his neck; he was trying so hard not to moan aloud. He slid a cold hand up under Craig’s blue argyle sweater and relished the feeling of his boyfriend’s skin under his fingertips. He could feel the firm muscle in his back, and he trailed his fingers down to the small of his back, at which point he realized what he was doing and broke away from the kiss, screaming nervously.

“Ah! Fuck - ah! I can’t, I don’t, ah!” He grabbed a handful of his own hair and tugged hard. 

“Wait, wait, wait, babe, I’m sorry,” Craig backed away a little, giving him space but still holding him up. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I just wanted to show you,” he glanced gingerly down to his own pants, “I definitely don’t like Clyde more than you. Or anyone for that matter.”

Tweek bit his lip, wide-eyed because he could see what Craig had meant, and though he definitely wanted him, one-hundred percent, he was too nervous to say so. And instead of saying so, he grabbed his boyfriend’s face once more and kissed him as if to explain, without words, how he felt.

He thought Craig understood. But even when they made their way to one of Bebe’s aforementioned guest rooms, they didn’t take it any further. Tweek simply sat up in the bed, pulled off his shirt, and kissed Craig lazily until they dozed off into sleep.


End file.
